Iraq war victim Ali Abbas was just 12-years-old when he lost both of his arms, and 16 members of his family, when two stray Allied bombs destroyed his home in Baghdad in 2003. Now 19, Ali’s return to his homeland is documented in a two-part series, Baghdad Boy. Presenter Hugh Sykes describes his journey to Baghdad to meet with Ali

People still reflexively try to shake hands with Ali when they greet him. I did, the first time I met him three years ago.

When I caught up with him again in Baghdad this summer, I didn’t offer my hand. But, just for a second, I did try to hand him the tin of sweets we’d bought at a corner shop on our way to see him.

I gulped with embarrassment, and put the sweets down. He laughed. I laughed. “It happens all the time,” he said.

Unexplained attack

Ali laughs a lot - even in the simple, one-storey brick house on the farm where his parents and 14 other members of his family were killed by an American missile which exploded, late one night, at the end of March 2003, during the Iraq war.

Ali was twelve years old.

The missile attack remains unexplained. Ali does not think it was accidental. But doesn’t know why. There was a military base in the area – but it was two kilometres away. Ali’s brother and two sisters survived; the walls collapsed into the room where they were sleeping, but a fridge stopped the bricks falling onto them.

Ali, and his mother and father, were buried under rubble. He remembers hearing his mother screaming before she died. Her death was two deaths – she was pregnant.

Ali’s arms were so badly burned in the explosion that there was almost no flesh left on them. Both arms were amputated just below his shoulders.

“Life was better here before the war,” he told me. “Better under Saddam Hussein?,” I asked. “Yes,” he replied.

Many Iraqis agree with him. Mostly, they say things like: “Yes, Saddam was brutal, but you always knew where the red line was – and you knew what would happen to you if you crossed it.”

The first time I heard it argued like that was from a man whose 10-year-old son had been paralysed from the waist down when a stray bullet went through his neck.

High security

Travelling through Baghdad to visit Ali at his home in the countryside, south of the city, there are frequent visible reminders of the awful violence that descended on the Iraqi capital after Saddam Hussein was deposed.

Many main streets are canyons of concrete – high blast walls separating the road from shops and offices, as a deterrent to car bombs. There are watch towers, barbed wire, and incessant check-points with long queues.

And, because of a perceived kidnap threat to foreigners, a simple radio assignment for a BBC reporter to visit Ali Abbas involved two vehicles and eight people altogether, including security advisers and a translator.

Baghdad is much safer now than it was a few years ago – the large-scale attacks which used to happen almost every day are now relatively rare. But they do happen.

Ongoing extremes

While I was interviewing Ali, a young man walked into the room – Issam, one of Ali’s friends. He looked exhausted, and stunned.

The previous day, Issam had been queuing for work outside an army recruitment centre in Baghdad, with dozens of other young men, when a suicide bomber exploded his device – killing at least sixty people and wounding dozens more.

Ali listens intently as Issam explains what happened. He then lightened the mood by reaching for his iPhone – with his feet – and scrolling through some cheerful family photographs on the screen – with his toes.

Another challenge in Baghdad in the summer is the heat. The day I visited Ali, it was 50°C (122°F) in the shade. His home has ceiling fans, and an air-conditioner. But no mains water supply. Water is delivered by tanker, and has to be boiled to make it drinkable. And for most of every day, the fans and the air-con unit are powered by a generator. The first person I met when I arrived was Ali’s uncle Taher, who was siphoning fuel from his car, for the generator.