Focus on civilian victims of mines and bombs

Lying on his hospital bed at the Italian-funded Emergency Surgical Clinic in the Afghan capital, Kabul, 15-year-old Mukhtar is in agony. He talks about the day he was hit by shrapnel from US-led bombing. As a doctor tends his wounds, he screams in pain. His left arm was fractured, one of his legs has been amputated and the other badly burned. Doctors say he may never walk again. "I want to be with my family at home," he told IRIN. Mukhtar said he was near a Taliban base when he heard shooting and loud explosions before he fell unconscious. Having spent over a month in the intensive care unit, the boy was recently moved to the children's ward where he will be kept until his wounds heal. The US-led bombing, aimed at wiping out Taliban forces and terrorist training camps, has claimed civilian lives and left unexploded ordnance scattered throughout a country with one of the highest concentrations of land mines in the world. "There are between 50 and 100 victims of land mines and unexploded ordnance every week," head of the UN’s Mine Action Programme for Afghanistan (MAPA), Dan Kelly told IRIN in Kabul. He estimated some 500 sq km of the country have been littered with unexploded bombs, shells and mortars. "We know that 2,000 coalition bombs hit Taliban military depots. This has led to ordnance from the depots being spewed out in a five km radius," he explained. According to information provided by the coalition up until 8 December, Kelly said 103 areas had been bombed in the country and most of these had received more than a thousand bombs. The number of patients with war related injuries being admitted to the Emergency Surgical Clinic has increased over the past two months, according to doctors. "We have treated at least four children injured by cluster bombs," surgeon, Dr Marco Garatei told IRIN. "We saw 173 injured people in December 2001 and carried out 240 operations," he explained.

"Young Abdul lost a leg to a mine"

The huge amount of unexploded ordnance on and below ground adds to the existing huge problem of mines in Afghanistan. In a nearby bed at the Emergency Surgical Clinic lay a 14-year-old land mine victim. Abdul Rehman had been brought from the central Bamyan province; a two-hour drive from Kabul, after part of his leg was blown off. Gathering grass to feed cattle, he was hurled into the air after stepping on a land mine at the end of December 2001. "I don't remember much," he said. "I just remember being thrown into the air and then I woke up in hospital," he told IRIN. According to MAPA’s 2001 survey, there are approximately 784 sq km that experts believe are mined in Afghanistan. In addition to this, there is an estimated 100 sq km of suspected mined area on the northern front line and central highlands, yet to be surveyed due to security conditions, Kelly said. The southern province of Kandahar and the western province of Herat are currently being assessed for land mines. Asked how long it would take to clear the war-torn nation of such devices, Kelly said it would take seven years to do the job. "That means clearing the high priority areas and marking the low priority areas," he maintained. Children are often the most vulnerable to mines and unexploded ordnance. As Afghans continue to return to their villages and cities bombed over the past three months, MAPA, with some five thousand staff, predominantly Afghan, has started an awareness campaign all over the country. "We are informing internally displaced people, refugees who want to return," he said. Back at the clinic, young Mukhtar has yet to come to terms with what has happened. Although he yearns to play with his friends, he could be wheelchair-bound for life. He is just one of 30 children being treated at the clinic. But things have got easier at the medical facility in recent weeks - the Taliban closed it in May 2001 after it had only been open for a month. "The then religious police jumped over the walls of the building with Kalashnikovs and started to beat up the guards," Garatei said. They accused women staff of eating with male staff in the dining room at the clinic. Under the Taliban's ultra-fundamentalist regime, women were forbidden to mix with men in public or at work. The clinic reopened early in November, a few days before Kabul fell to opposition Northern Alliance forces. The Emergency Surgical Centre and its 250 staff, 30 percent of whom are women, was funded by the Italian government. However, Garatei said they have now refused to take money from them due to their involvement in the US-led bombings. "We felt it was inappropriate to treat Afghans with funds from those who have supported the war," he explained.