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CNN Live Sunday

Land Mines Continue to Maim Afghans

Aired November 25, 2001 - 18:30   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.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: Long before the U.S. air strikes began, Afghanistan was a country that was plagued by years of internal fighting. And as CNN's Ben Wedeman reports, that nation is filled with many casualties of war.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED DOCTOR: You know, this leg here has got basically no skin all over this area. And then this amputation here, and he has a back fracture with bad injury of the arm.

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Dr. Geno Strada (ph) has treated hundreds of mine victims, like 15-year old Mochtar Muhammed (ph). People whose only crime was to take a step in the wrong direction. The war in Afghanistan doesn't discriminate between young and old, man and woman, civilian and soldier. There are no reliable statistics on how many have been maimed, mutilated and traumatized by war, but they number in the hundreds of thousands.

16-year old Forhat Naseem (ph) was in a car that drove over a mine. His left kidney and spleen were destroyed. He now has amnesia. Doctors say Taliban gunmen shot 55-year old Muhammed Kabir (ph) four times as he walked to his fields. On this day a surgeon, a woman, cleaned and closed his gaping abdominal wound. Here, one operation follows another, day in, day out, taking a toll on the staff at this Italian-run hospital.

UNIDENTIFIED DOCTOR: As a doctor I feel, I don't know, angry and depressed.

WEDEMAN: At a Red Cross clinic, mine victims learn to walk with their new limbs, one tentative step at a time. 15-year old Weis Adeem (ph) lost his left leg five years ago. He's come here for a replacement. Munira Munsur (ph) makes artificial limbs and wears two herself. She has had two children since she lost her legs, and says that despite her wounds, she lives a normal life. With what they have left, they manage to carry on.

(on-camera) Like beating swords into ploughshares, this workshop is using the tires from old Russian armored personnel carriers to make footwear for people mutilated by mines.

(off-camera) A mine blew off Rajib Dean's (ph) left leg 10 years ago. He's now having a prosthesis fitted, because he recently stepped on another mine, again with his left leg.

ROBERTO CAIRO, RED CROSS: I have learned something: that when there is someone coming without legs, I have stopped thinking, Oh, he's without legs. I think, Oh, this man in a couple of weeks will walk again. I think positively, otherwise I could not survive.

WEDEMAN: They will walk again, but it won't be easy.

Ben Wedeman, CNN, Kabul.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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