US attack kills Afghan children in Kabul

Live television captures scenes of tragedy, and desperation

October 28, 2001

American warplanes struck civilian dwellings in the Makrurian neighborhood of the Afghan capital Kabul on Sunday morning killing a number of people many of them children Al-Jazeera reported.

In a live report from the city moments after the strike, at approximately 9 AM in Kabul, the television showed residents desperately digging through the rubble of destroyed houses with small shovels looking for bodies of loved ones. The television showed several bodies being uncovered from under rubble, including the bodies of two young sisters. The television showed their father crying and utterly distraught as his daughters were pulled from the rubble and laid out on the ground. As people dug for bodies, American warplanes circled overhead, and some people ran for cover, apparently in fear of more attacks.

The television showed, in pictures which were extremely difficult to bear, bodies of children being laid out inside a building. One of the bodies visible was missing limbs. Adults gently laid the bodies out and covered them with sheets. In another shot the camera showed a head being revealed by a rescuers shovel from a pile of rubble.

The television showed a teenage boy searching among rubble of a house possibly for members of his family.

As the report was live, and the events were still unfolding, it was impossible to say exactly how many people were killed. The Al-Jazeera correspondent Taysir Allouni said that one completely destroyed house had had nine occupants, of whom only one had emerged alive. In addition to the dead people, the television showed a neighborhood of very simple mud houses, which are simply pulverized when bombed, and many dazed, injured and distraught residents.

These images, perhaps because they were live and unedited, showed in the most direct and shocking way what high explosives do to human beings and their homes. These were the most upsetting pictures I have yet seen from the war, and at times I found myself having to turn away from the screen.

In other news, Israeli occupation forces have killed at least four more Palestinians over the weekend, bringing the number Israel has killed since October 18 to near 50. The Israeli government has announced that it is postponing indefinitely its announced withdrawal from the towns and cities it reoccupied since October 18.

Ali Abunimah
http://www.abunimah.org