Page 24 - Time Magazine-November 05, 2018

dozens. Three days earlier, the entire leadership of children could receive an education. “Boys as young Abdul Rashid,
Kandahar was almost wiped out in an assassination as 8 years old were carrying weapons and wearing one of the last
attack that came close to killing the U.S. commander bandoliers of bullets,” he said, outside his home in boys to be
of the war, General Austin S. Miller. May. He feared that if they didn’t leave, his boys discharged, and
A heavy toll has been paid by civilians in this would fall under the sway of the fighters. Rabia rest at
years-long conflict. Many have been killed by IEDs, By 2014, the war had come home. Their village home. Many legs
suicide bombers or airstrikes. But among the more in Surkh Rod district had become a no-man’s-land not lost in the
than 8,050 noncombatants killed or injured so far between a government-controlled highway and explosion likely
were broken
this year according to the U.N., a total of 337 have the Taliban’s Black Mountain, so named because
been killed by unexploded ordnance left behind on snow never falls there. That year, international
the battlefield. Of these, 90% were children. forces handed responsibility for the country’s
These included the members of the Ibrahim Khil security back to the Afghan government, and
family surrounding that RPG. Shrapnel tore through the Taliban started attacking Afghan soldiers
their flesh, from toes to thighs. Five would lose por- stationed on the highway. Local elders pleaded
tions of a leg, and two would lose most of both. Three, with both sides to avoid battles near their homes.
and one adult who was with them, would lose their The fighters agreed, but nothing changed.
lives before reaching the hospital. Which side was re- RPG explosion—all from the Ibrahim Khil family—
On April 29, the seven children who survived the
ANDREW QUILT Y FOR TIME be certain. To the victims, it made no difference at all. arrived at Nangarhar Regional Hospital in Jalalabad
sponsible, soldier or insurgent, Hamisha Gul couldn’t
at 7 a.m. “Muscles and tendons were hanging from
In 2008, Hamisha Gul moved his family from a
their legs,” said Bilal Sayed Miakhil, the hospital’s
neighboring district controlled by the Taliban so his
specialist orthopedic surgeon. “Their injuries were
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