Kabul must surely be close. Everywhere soldiers have seeded the ground with land mines, the most in any city in the world, according to the U.N. Mohammed Ibrahim Warsag, Kabul's mayor, ticks off a list of further devastation. Roads torn up by tanks. And half a million people cannot get sufficient bread. As the rockets churn houses into rubble, families seek shelter in the ruins of abandoned neighborhoods, many of which contain minefields.
Children are especially vulnerable, since they are sent to scavenge.
Because we are poor, we can't buy wood. I didn't know there are minefields. When I opened my eyes, I was in the hospital without my legs. The simplest impulse is perilous. Rahmat Khan, a school watchman, describes how a breeze blew his hat across a playground.