“When you lose a leg, you don’t just lose a leg — you lose a piece of heart, you lose a piece of mind, you lose a piece of self-confidence,” Mr. Cairo said on Wednesday at the center in Kabul, one of seven rehabilitation centers that he leads across the country. “All this has to be restored, and all together it makes dignity.”

Mr. Cairo, who grew up in Turin before moving to Milan, had studied to be a lawyer. But drawn to relief work, he retrained in physical therapy. One of his first postings with the I.C.R.C. took him to a Kabul that was under siege. What has kept him here, he says, is the daily reward of empowering people ostracized for their disabilities.

Ferozuddin Feroz, Afghanistan’s minister of health, said he first ran into Mr. Cairo when he was finishing his residency as a surgical medical student. He repeatedly referred to Mr. Cairo as a hero.

“He has dedicated himself to Afghanistan, and for us it is about how can we learn from him,” Mr. Feroz said.

When Mr. Cairo first arrived in Afghanistan, the program catered exclusively to war victims. In a country where 3 to 5 percent of the population, by the health minister’s count, suffers from some disability, Mr. Cairo quickly realized that was not fair. The program expanded in the mid-1990s to include anyone with a disability affecting their mobility.