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CNN Live At Daybreak
Shortages in Afghanistan Continue as Exiles in U.S. Prepare for Fall of Taliban
Aired November 08, 2001 - 05:22 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KAGAN: A medical angle of the story for you now. In Afghanistan, the hospital shortages there were acute long before U.S. bombs started dropping on that country.
Now our Nic Robertson reports from Kandahar the situation with hospitals in Afghanistan has grown even worse.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Dr. Rahman Zakheri has little time to spare these days. The casualties keep coming, he says, seven or eight a day, and not just from Kandahar. This hospital's surgery, the only one for hundreds of miles.
DR. RAHMAN ZAKHERI, HEAD OF KANDAHAR HOSPITAL: And injured people come to this hospital. There is a lack of medicine. There is a lack of blood. There are no blood banks. There's no electricity. There's no all kind of surgical necessities.
ROBERTSON: Best described as rudimentary, the hospital has never matched Western medical standards. But with the daily bombings, staff say the hospital's limitations have become critical. The doctor points to shrapnel in the patient's skull and leg. The patient says she and her family were bombed in the market the previous night. I lost my two daughters, she explains, my brother-in-law, his two daughters, my son-in-law and in my uncle's family, nine were killed.
In another ward, staff shortages have driven Rasaul, the hospital's chief cook, out of the kitchen. He's traded nutrition for nursing.
RASAUL, KITCHEN SUPERVISOR: And when this bomb come through to Afghanistan most of the doctors they run away from Kandahar.
RAHMAN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) in this hospital.
ROBERTSON: For now, Dr. Rahman is one of only three surgeons left behind to serve a regional population of millions. He says it's not just the medical staff running away. There are plenty of empty beds here.
RAHMAN: They are bombing, the airplanes, the American airplanes are bombing near to the hospital because all the patients they're afraid. So they self-discharge from the hospital.
ROBERTSON: Those too ill to leave are forced to endure Kandahar's Spartan conditions. This man, whose name is Hezbollah, whispers he was caught in a bomb blast as he drove by a power plant. He says that three of his friends were killed.
In another bed, a man who claims to have been caught up in the same bombing raid asked whether he was near any military units says, I'm a civilian and I am hit.
The accounts are impossible to verify. But ask 8-year-old Gulan how he feels. My head hurts. To him it's that simple. Gulan's neighbor, who brought him in, says Gulan was hit by shrapnel. His sister, Bibi Ghoul (ph), he says, was killed.
On another ward, the local governor is visiting the wounded. He complains about the bombing and how for years Afghanistan's medical facilities have been poor.
UNIDENTIFIED AFGHAN: It is very important for the world to pay attention and also for Muslims to help their brothers.
ROBERTSON: Without any help, staff here say shortages of medicine, equipment and trained staff lead to at least one death a day.
(on camera): In any war, hospitals become a window on the suffering of a nation. The war on terrorism in Afghanistan is no exception. The only difference here, the Taliban restrictions on journalists visiting the country mean that very few get to look through that window.
Nic Robertson, CNN, Kandahar, Afghanistan.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: A footnote to Nic's report, the Pentagon has repeatedly stressed that it's trying to minimize civilian casualties in Afghanistan even as the Taliban regime continues to harbor terrorists who are connected to the September 11 attacks that claimed thousands of innocent lives in the U.S.
Well, if and when peace is restored in Afghanistan, lots of people will be needed to make a new government there.
CNN's James Hattori talked with one group here in the U.S. which hopes to help restore Afghanistan's future.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAMES HATTORI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Prayer time as these Afghan refugees consider the fate of their homeland. But this isn't Kabul. It's Fremont, California, home to the largest Afghan immigrant population in the U.S., numbering some 60,000. Many at this recent community meeting, professionals and intellectuals who fled persecution 20 years ago and who are now giving serious thought to going home and rebuilding Afghanistan.
WAHEED MOMAND, AFGHAN COALITION: We are trying to use the momentum and organize a movement of Afghan intellectuals all around the world because, you know, Afghanistan is basically a body without a brain.
HATTORI: Waheed Momand was a university professor and political activist back in Kabul. Today, he's a computer network manager and president of the Afghan Coalition, a non-political group with hundreds of members who want a voice in planning Afghanistan's future.
MOMAND: Right now it's a very big vacuum in the political life of Afghanistan.
HATTORI: Momand and his coalition support U.S. troops in Afghanistan and ousting of the Taliban regime.
MOMAND: I think after 22 or 23 years of war, what the people actually need? The people need, you know, food. The people need shelter, you know? The people are -- they are tired from being exploited by different groups.
HATTORI (on camera): If and when the Taliban falls, the Afghan Coalition stands ready to help with the formation of a new, democratic, sovereign government in Afghanistan and the coalition believes there is only one man capable of leading that new government.
UNIDENTIFIED AFGHAN: The king is one answer, definitely. The king can actually mobilize a lot of Afghans around himself.
HATTORI (voice-over): The Coalition is calling for a two year provisional government headed by 86-year-old King Mohammad Zahir Shah, who was deposed 28 years ago. But while the fighting goes on in Afghanistan, plans to repatriate and rebuild are so far just talk. Yet for Waheed Momand and other Afghan-Americans, there's little doubt the time will come.
MOMAND: The majority of people in Afghanistan, they don't want any war, any more war. I as an Afghan, you know, an Afghan-American, but at the same time as a blood of Afghan in my body, so first I have to help those people. We have to. This is our duty, you know?
HATTORI: James Hattori, CNN, Fremont, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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