With our Smiles at Christmas campaign you can help to give innocent children maimed by the Mosul monsters the chance of a better life

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Once a local community hospital with just 50 beds, Shikhan is now a combat clinic, treating some of the hideous wounds inflicted by modern warfare.

It is partially funded by one of our Christmas charities, the Amar foundation, which provides vital medical supplies.

Amar, builder in Arabic, aims to rebuild lives in the Middle East which have been torn apart by terrorism. It is currently working to help those fleeing Mosul, where I have gone to see it in action.

The ambulance sirens announce the arrival from the frontline of more fighting men maimed by bullets and bombs — and blood-drenched civilians caught in the mayhem.

The hospital has three operating theatres but despite the growing humanitarian crisis, only one is functional due to a lack of emergency beds and monitors.

Along a corridor jammed with wailing relatives a fraught, white-coated doctor is at Norhan’s bedside to examine her X-rays.

He says she needs a further CT scan to decide how far the shrapnel has penetrated her brain and whether it can be safely removed.

Little Norhan hugs her doll tightly to her chest. When her mother Samar relates the family’s harrowing story, it’s little wonder Norhan is so fearful of letting go.

Samar, 30, tells how Norhan and her sister Wrood, two, were playing outside their home in the IS infested al-Qahira district of Mosul when she heard two huge blasts.

The pregnant mum-of-four, who doesn’t know who fired the mortars, says: “The girls were lying covered in blood. When we saw the shrapnel wounds we knew we had to get them to a doctor quickly.”

Her husband Nashwan, 35, a textile worker, carried Norhan while their 11-year-old son Ahem cradled a weakening Wrood as the family trudged for four hours, through gunfire and further bomb blasts, towards Iraqi army lines.

With tears in her eyes, Samar recalls: “We kept getting lost. Wrood was getting weaker and weaker. We finally reached the Iraqi soldiers but Wrood bled to death shortly afterwards.

“My heart is broken. If we had known the way then Wrood would have survived.”

In her bed opposite, labourer’s daughter Wijdan offers a smile of comfort for her new friend

She too was spirited across the battle lines to Shikhan Hospital — 28 miles from Mosul and the only hospital in Nineveh Province not in IS hands.

At the beleaguered hospital she will eventually have a prosthesis fitted. Her mental wounds will doubtless take longer to heal.

Eleven of her extended family died in the bombed-out rubble of Mosul, including her father, 17-year-old sister and toddler cousin. Others were left maimed.

Her mother Shamsa, 40, tells me: “Daesh and the Iraqi army were all around our house. There were massive rockets, mortars and gunfire. The family hid under the stairs but we took a direct hit with a bomb. We have no idea who fired it.”

Then she gestures around the chaotic ward at the shattered remnants of her family.

In the bed next to daughter Wijdan is her son Faisel, 17, who has cerebral palsy, and suffered a head wound. Opposite is cousin

Hanna, 18, her right leg torn away and an elbow shattered in the blast. At Hanna’s bedside is her brother Amar, 23, nursing a shattered hip joint. He is weeping over a photo of his toddler Aya, who perished in the same explosion.

Hanna says: “After the bomb hit I saw my severed leg on the floor. I was conscious the whole time.

“We were taken to a Daesh-controlled hospital in Mosul. Our wounds were treated and we were sent home.”

A doctor later explains that in the heat and filth, Hanna’s wounds became infected with maggots.

Their only hope was to make it to the Iraqi army lines, from where they were taken by ambulance to Shikhan Hospital. Mum Shamsa, who is busily arranging soft toys around Wijdan’s bed, shrugs: “I don’t know what our future holds. We have nothing in the world but what we need most now is a wheelchair for Wijdan and Hanna.”

Hard-pressed doctors here are proficient enough — just hamstrung by a lack of medical equipment.

One, who asked not to be named for fear of IS retribution against his family still in Mosul, begs: “Please help us.”

The medic, 28, adds: “The battle for Mosul will not end soon. Many more like Wijdan and Norhan will come. We have a chronic shortage of operating equipment. We need the world to help.”

The charity Amar — founded in 1991 by Lady Emma Nicholson — uses locals to provide aid, treatment and education to needy children and adults.

Baroness Nicholson, who is also Amar’s chairman, visited the Shikhan clinic recently.

She said: “This hospital, this region, is on the very frontline of the war against Daesh. Already there are an extraordinary number of victims whose suffering is unbelievable.

“Mothers who have lost their children. Wives who have lost their husbands. And this is only the beginning. The war to liberate Mosul has only just begun.”

Amar is providing Shikhan with vital medical equipment including hospital beds and nebulisers, which deliver medicine to patients struggling to breathe. You can also help the overwhelmed hospital through The Sun’s Smiles at Christmas appeal.