STOW shopkeeper Richard Rasdall is taking his healing hands to Bosnia this month for the second time.

Mr Rasdall, who runs The Honey Pot in Church Street, is a skilled masseur and leaves England on September 16 to travel to the north Bosnian town of Ostra Luka as part of a team of five therapists from the Healing Hands Network. The charity was set up several years ago and regularly sends therapists from to Bosnia to work with people still suffering from the ravages of the wars that destroyed much of the country during the 1990s.

Each therapist spends only two weeks at a time in Bosnia and Mr Rasdall's first trip came in May this year when he went to work at the Healing Hand Network's base in Sarajevo.

He said: "The trip I'm doing now is at the request of the Roman Catholic priest of Ostra Luka, which is on the border with Croatia and quite close to Serbia.

"It was on the front line during the war and they have been begging for help."

His work is mostly with victims of rape, torture and the landmines that litter the area. His massage and the work of the other therapists helps them to relax and cope better with psychological scars left by their varied traumas.

"Having seen it done, it does do a tremendous amount of good," Mr Rasdall said. "They are very, very appreciative. They have lots of problems with young people because the majority of the menfolk were taken away and killed. The children can't go out and play because of the mines. In some ways they are imprisoned and what the father is finding is that a lot of young people are committing suicide because they have no leadership from the older people."

Ostra Luka also suffers from being in the flood plain of the River Sava which floods regularly and moves the landmines around.

People are often blown up by mines and large areas of countryside are still out of bounds because of the danger of unmarked mines.

To pay for his trip Mr Rasdall needs to raise at least £750 and donations can be made at The Honey Pot or Stow Post Office.