Photographer Alessio Mamo recalls how he came to photograph Manal, a 12-year-old Iraqi girl recovering from severe burns sustained in a missile explosion in Kirkuk, as part of a project documenting patients at the Médecins Sans Frontières Al-Mowasah hospital in Amman. The portrait, taken while Manal underwent extensive treatment, later won an award at the 2018 World Press Photo prize, and Mamo reflects on how the image continues to resonate given that children remain frequent casualties of ongoing conflicts.

The project, called The Hospital of All the Wars, was made with journalist Marta Bellingreri and involved regular visits to the hospital, which treats patients from Iraq, Gaza, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon. Manal wore a protective mask for around five hours a day to shield her face from light, but Mamo describes her as a lively, sociable girl who remained in touch with him; he visited her in Kirkuk last year, when she was 19. Now a father himself, Mamo says the subject feels increasingly urgent, and he is preparing to travel to Beirut with the Guardian to photograph children harmed in the ongoing war, many of whom have been wounded in recent Israeli attacks.