After German care child patients to return to Afghanistan
Its German name, Friedensdorf, translates as Peace Village - a place were children badly injured in Afghanistan and other conflict regions are nourished back to health.
Last year the site - Friedensdorf International - took charge of more than 190 Afghan children who underwent free surgery in hospitals across Germany.
On Monday, the first batch of 58 is due to return to Kabul after successfully completing their treatment.
But it is an uncertain future they are going back to - NATO-led troops have just launched a major offensive against Talibal rebels in the south their homeland.
Nasira, a young girl in a hooded, red jacket, looks as though she might come from one of the well-kept detached houses that surround Friedensdorf, located on the outskirts of the industrial city of Oberhausen in the west of Germany.
But Nasira is from Kabul, where her father repairs houses and schools in the province that surrounds the Afghan capital.
She has been in the village for a year and twice underwent complicated surgery to restore movement in the crippled fingers of her right hand.
She had mixed feelings when she first came to Germany "because I didn′t know what to expect."
Like all other children at the camp, she did not have any contact with her family while she was there.
"It′s difficult for the parents as well," says Wolfgang Mertens, a spokesman for Friedensdorf International, whose operations are financed entirely through donations.
It has been operating in crisis regions for 43 years. Since 1980 its members have been flying twice a year to Afghanistan, where the healthcare system poorly functions.
War wounds, bone infections and deformities can′t be treated properly, says Mertens. Even in the big cities, hygiene conditions in hospitals are bad, he adds.
A doctor from the Afghan Red Crescent organization - the equivalent of the Red Cross - selects young patients from across the country to go to Germany for treatment.
"A condition is that the injuries cannot be treated in Afghanistan and that the parents do not have the money to pay for surgery," Martens says.
More than two-thirds of the children sent to Germany have painful bone infections, says Mertens.
But the number of war injured has decreased in recent months, according to Dr Mohammed Hariri, a Lebanese former doctor who works in a voluntary capacity at the village.
"When they first arrive the children feel a bit intimidated," he says. "But they soon realize the people here want to help them, and the quickly pick up their first German words."
At the village, the children spend their time with rehab training, German lessons, sewing and cooking. War is not discussed.
"Some people don′t think it′s a good idea to tear children away from their normal environment and bring them to a world that is like a fairytale to them," says Mertens.
For this reason, those working with the children keep an emotional distance between themselves and their charges. Only in exceptional circumstances are the children allowed to leave the village.
Bonding with private individuals is discouraged to ensure the children do not become alienated from their own country and heritage.
"Afghanistan is very different from Germany, not as new and more mountainous," says Yar Mohammad, one of those returning home on Monday.
The young boy picked up a bone infection while playing at his home in Parwan province, eastern Afghanistan and was unable to get treatment there.
"I hope that Afghanistan will be like Germany one day," says Saliman, who has been at the centre for two years with an injured leg and now translates questions posed by the carers to new arrivals.
When Mohammad, Saliman, Nasira and the other children board their flight home, they will each be carrying a bag packed with enough medicine and bandages for the next six months.
The next group of patients is already waiting. Eighty-five youngsters are getting ready to leave Afghanistan for Germany next Friday.