Hospital receives Afghan casualties

Nearly 200 Afghans wounded during US-led air strikes have been brought to a hospital in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP), hospital officials told IRIN on Wednesday.

"We can cope at the moment, but the situation is said to be worsening, and we will need much more assistance if the number of casualties from Afghanistan continues to increase," the secretary for health emergency coordination at Hayatabad Medical College in the NWFP, Dr Jamil Bangash, said.

He added that resources at the hospital, located 60 km from the border with Afghanistan, were stretched due to the large number of Afghan refugees already admitted. The injuries were mainly caused by shrapnel, and there were some who had been hit by walls from collapsing buildings, Bangash said. "There are 81 people who have been seriously injured, and most of the injuries are to the head and chest," he added.

Bangash said although there were ample human resources, the hospital would need more financial support in order to be able to provide the wounded with sufficient medication. Most of the casualties were being brought through the eastern city of Jalalabad, which was bombed as part of the US-led war against terrorism.

He also stressed that Afghans crossing the rough mountainous terrain into Pakistan illegally, due to the fact that the border is closed, were not only putting themselves in danger but also increasing the risks of disease for the local population. "We already fear that there could be epidemics of diseases such as measles in the coming months," he said.

The number of deaths and casualties since the bombing started has been difficult to track due to the security situation inside Afghanistan. However, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported up to 35 civilian deaths of Afghans which they say were caused by US bombs that hit the village of Chowkar-Karez near the southern Afghan province and Taliban stronghold of Kandahar.

"If there were military targets in the area, we'd like to know what they were," the Asia director of HRW, Sidney Jones, said. "This is the second instance in less than a week in which we've documented substantial civilian casualties from US bombing raids. The Pentagon has got to do more to avoid these deaths," he added.

HRW researchers have located six wounded survivors of the 22 October raid during which Chowkar-Karez was struck. They who are now recovering in hospitals in the neighbouring southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta.

An HRW statement said accounts by the survivors consistently indicated that the bombs were dropped during the night by several aircraft overflying the village. "Many of the people in the village ran out of their homes, afraid that the bombs would fall on their homes," the statement said.

According to the witnesses interviewed by HRW, the aircraft then returned to the area and began firing from guns. Many of the civilians were killed by the firing, which lasted for about an hour. "We urge the Pentagon to investigate immediately what went wrong on October 22, and to take all feasible steps to avoid repetition of such a tragedy," Jones said.