Leonid Roshal is uncomfortable. The 72-year-old Russian paediatrician does not want to be described as a hero and he certainly does not style himself that way. “I am a doctor,” he says.

Over the past two decades he has dedicated himself to helping children injured in times of crisis, war and natural disaster. Since he began his work during the Armenian earthquake of 1988, he has taken a medical team to more than 24 incidents in countries all over the world, including Israel, Afghanistan, Turkey, Algeria and India.

In his native Russia Roshal, professor at the Moscow Scientific Research Institute for Emergency Children’s Surgery and Traumatology, is seen as a crusader. He gained international recognition in 2002 when he played a crucial role in negotiating the release of a number of hostages when the Dubrovka theatre in Moscow was seized by Chechen terrorists.

Last September, when terrorists seized School No 1 in Beslan, taking more than 1,000 hostages in the gymnasium — most of them children — Roshal was asked to act as mediator. Within 30 minutes of arriving he was pleading with the captors to allow in food, water and medicine.

Over the next two days he served as one of the main negotiators and prepared hospitals for casualties. “The man I spoke to never answered any of my questions.

All he said to me was, ‘If you come closer than 30 metres (to the gym) we will kill you’.” All his pleas fell on deaf ears.

Roshal flew into Britain last week with a mission — and he is determined that, this time, his pleas will not remain unanswered. A consultant to the World Health Organisation, he is launching a campaign to fund mobile paediatric emergency teams that will assist children all over the world who are caught up in crises and conflicts such as earthquakes, mudslides or terrorism.

He believes that children embroiled in such crises are not getting the best medical care available, despite the valiant efforts of bodies such as Unicef and the Red Cross when it comes to mounting disaster relief. Lives are being lost unnecessarily, he says, and so are limbs: “At my paediatric institute we have pioneered techniques that help to preserve arms and legs. So often what happens in the first two days after an injury is crucial.”

More lives, he says, could be saved by prompt treatment by specialist children’s doctors. Although the World Health Organisation has mobile emergency units which treat adults, there are at present no specific teams dedicated to young victims: “We don’t have a clearly defined way of treating them in emergencies in the world. It is a huge mistake to think that general doctors can treat children as well as paediatricians.”

Roshal’s own medical skills were honed in earthquakes in Georgia, Afghanistan, Turkey and Algeria. He is an expert in what is known as crushed limb syndrome, a technique that has halved amputation rates: “When a body is crushed beneath the weight of stones or timber, you can have fractures, interrupted blood flow and damaged muscles. Usually you amputate the limb in question.”

His team has pioneered painstaking techniques, involving transfusions and dressings, that help to preserve the muscle tissue and hence the limb.

Two years ago in Algeria he treated two teenage girls who had suffered severe injuries in the earthquake. Local doctors advised removing the affected limbs but he flew the girls back to Moscow for treatment and saved their legs: “The prospects for children like this in some countries are terrible.

I had been told they were from poor families and that if they lost a leg they would never marry. I was even told they could be stoned to death.”