Gazing out of his bedroom window hoping for a miracle, Habib knows he will die in the next few months without treatment for a debilitating kidney disease but his family are unable to afford the life-saving transplant operation.

The young man’s parents, Kurdish Christians, spent most of their money moving Habib and six of his siblings to a village on the Turkish border of Kurdish-run northern Iraq last year to escape the violence in Baghdad.
Adding to their dilemma, the family’s new home sits on the frontline of what could become a war zone if Turkey decides to launch a military operation to fight Kurdish rebels based across the mountainous border.
“He is very sick and needs a kidney transplant. If not he will die,” said Habib’s father, Shamoon Michael, tears streaming down his face.
Nadema Mosa, his mother, was also desperate. “Please, please somebody help us,” she said, stooping to touch her son gently on one shoulder as he lay in bed, too weak to move or speak.
Both of the 21-year-old’s kidneys no longer work, he is unable to eat without throwing up and even keeping down liquids is difficult.
“He cannot concentrate. He needs fresh air so we open the window a fraction to help him to breathe,” said the mother.
I first met Habib and his family last week in Dash Ta Takhe, a tiny Christian village tucked away inside Iraq’s border with Turkey.
The area, a target of Turkish artillery trying to hit the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), has since been closed to journalists by the Kurdish region’s Peshmerga forces as cross-border tensions mount, but I was allowed access to the village again on Saturday to check up on the Michaels.
To my dismay, Habib’s condition had deteriorated rapidly.