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CNN Live At Daybreak

Afghan Orphans Face Tough Winter

Aired January 07, 2002 - 05:16   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.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Afghanistan has been mired in civil war for years, as you know, and sadly, many of its victims are the young, left as orphans or just abandoned, and the numbers are staggering.

CNN's John Vause visited one orphan in Kabul. He brings us a look from the inside.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In many ways, these children are the poorest of Afghans, just some of the estimated one million orphans in the country who live in appalling conditions. Here at the Tahia Mascan Orphanage (ph), one of two in Kabul, the toilets and showers don't work. The children use a bathing center once a week. The main meal of the day, potatoes and beans. It's been that way for months.

"For about five or six months, the children haven't eaten fruit," says Mohammed Zaher Fazeal, the director of the orphanage. "The children have many dietary problems."

They sleep 12 to a room with nothing more than a thin blanket against the winter chill. And it will become even colder here in the coming weeks. There is no real medical care, either physical or emotional, to deal with the years of trauma. Many of these children, though, aren't even orphans, sent away by their families because the conditions here are often better than at home.

Bahawain (ph) is 13 years old. His six sisters and two younger brothers still live with their mother. Still, these children seem surprisingly happy, like 8-year-old Shama Hamoud (ph), who says he wants for nothing, possibly because he knows no better. He's been an orphan almost all his short life.

"A bomb was dropped on our house many years ago," he told me. "My mother and father were killed."

After being told of the hardships of these children, Hamid Karzai visited the Alawuddin Orphanage. The children from Tahia Mascan were brought over, crammed onto two old trucks for a chance to see the new interim leader face to face. Karzai promised these children more food and warm clothes for winter. (on camera): It may not seem like much, but like almost everything else that Hamid Karzai has promised, there's little he can do without international aid. And if it doesn't come, perhaps the hardest thing he must do is explain why to these children.

John Vause, CNN, Kabul.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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