Mines Still Killing, Maiming; Many Afghans Can't Go Home
RABAT, Afghanistan, 9 jan 02 (Dallas Morning News)--
By Gregg Jones

Here in this village of vineyards, orchards, and wheat fields, death lurks in the fertile soil.

At the intersection of two foot paths, once busy with farmers going to their fields and women carrying water, an anti-personnel mine capable of tearing off a human leg lies just below the surface. Land mines and booby-trapped aerial bombs ring a mud house just ahead. Mines and booby traps surround another house just across the road.

After two decades of war, the dangers that make Rabat unlivable are the rule in Afghanistan. And before the hard work of rebuilding this shattered country can begin, before more than 5 million Afghan refugees and "internally displaced persons" can return to their homes, millions of mines and unexploded bombs and shells must be found and destroyed, experts say.

"Every shovel you put to the ground, you have to wonder: Will a mine explode?" said Hashmatullah Moslih, an aide to former President Burhanuddin Rabbani. "It will take a long time for death to abandon Afghanistan. The seeds of war are everywhere."

Even before the U.S. military campaign began Oct. 7, Afghanistan was the most heavily mined country in the world, with millions of unexploded anti-personnel and anti-vehicle mines, U.N. officials and de-mining groups say. Two U.S. soldiers suffered disabling injuries after stepping on land mines in Afghanistan this month.

At least five Afghans are killed or crippled every day by land mines, and possibly twice that number since many victims live in such remote areas that their deaths or injuries are never reported, experts with the United Nations say. Eighty percent of the disabled people in Afghanistan are land-mine victims, said Najmuddin, director of the International Committee of the Red Cross Orthopedic Hospital in Kabul, one of six ICRC centers in Afghanistan.

"A mine explosion will not give you a chance," said Dr. Nasir Ahmad of Halo Trust, a British de-mining group working in Afghanistan. "You will lose your leg either below the knee or above the knee."

The Karti Seh Surgical Hospital in Kabul is filled with land-mine casualties, such as cousins Qaisullah, 12, and Hikmat, 14, who were tilling the family plot the other day south of the city when one of them hit a land mine with his hoe, and it exploded.

Mohammed Yunus, 50, a shepherd who lives near the town of Ghorband, was walking along a mountain trail in November, on the way to offer prayers for a dead friend, when he stepped on a land mine. He lost his right leg below the knee. One of Yunus' relatives died in a land-mine accident last year, and another relative the year before that, he said from his hospital bed.

Rabat lies in the Shamali plain, the agricultural heartland of Afghanistan and one of the country's most heavily mined areas. The road running north from Kabul into the plain is lined with red stones and signs that warn: "Beware of mines on the sides of the road."

The plain was originally mined by the Soviet troops who occupied Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989 and the mujahedeen fighters who fought the Soviets. The Taliban and the Northern Alliance are the most recent protagonists to seed the Shamali plain with mines. And the U.S. bombing campaign against the Taliban has added to the problem, leaving Shamali and other areas littered with unexploded "bomblets" from cluster bombs and other ordnance, de-mining experts say.

Today, the mines and unexploded ordnance are everywhere _ scattered through vineyards and orchards, around garden walls, outside houses, along footpaths.

Some of the houses, like those in Rabat, have been booby-trapped with anti-tank mines and aerial bombs.

De-mining groups went to work in the Shamali plain Nov. 17, almost as soon as the Taliban fled Kabul. These days, villages and roads are busy with de-mining teams, as five international groups and nine Afghan groups try to clear Afghanistan of the deadly mines.

Finding and destroying the mines is painstaking and extremely dangerous work. This month, Halo Trust de-miners have suffered two accidents. One de-miner was killed and two were wounded in the first accident. In the other, a de-miner dropped an unexploded 23 mm anti-aircraft shell and it exploded, killing the man and one colleague and seriously injuring another.

Wearing protective visors and armor vests, the Halo Trust de-miners scour the ground in Rabat with metal detectors, inch by inch. When an object is located, a de-miner must carefully scrape and sweep the dirt away to reveal the object.

Sometimes it's only a tin can or a discarded battery. But sometimes it is a deadly anti-personnel mine or unexploded shell.

A small warning flag is planted beside the mine, until an explosives expert can arrive to set a charge that can be detonated to blow up the mine where it lies.

In the first month after de-miners opened a stretch of road north of Kabul that crossed the front lines between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance, de-miners found 24 anti-personnel mines and eight pieces of unexploded ordnance.

More than 30 civilians and 50 animals have been injured in accidents involving land mines along this stretch since mid-November, said Ahmad, the Halo Trust official.

Three days earlier, a 16-year-old boy was gathering firewood in a nearby field when he stepped on a mine and blew off his leg, the de-miners said.

As dangerous as the work is for the de-miners, there is no shortage of Afghans willing to take the risks for a salary of about $105 a month excellent by Afghan standards.

"People have to feed their families," said Rahmadtullah, the Halo Trust survey supervisor overseeing work in the Rabat area, who like many Afghans uses only one name.

The mines may be difficult to find at Rabat, but unexploded ordnance isn't. A "bomblet" from an old Russian cluster bomb can be seen lying along a footpath.

There are 23 mm anti-aircraft shell casings and other debris clogging an irrigation canal.

In one small area along the path at the corner of a mud wall surrounding a grape vineyard, Rahmadtullah's men have found and destroyed four anti-personnel mines. A de-miner had just discovered an Iranian YM1 anti-personnel mine at the spot one recent day one of 35 kinds of land mines used in Afghanistan. The de-miner sat on the ground, carefully sweeping the dirt away to fully expose the mine so a charge could be set to blow it up.

The last two decades of war have given Afghans vast experience in dealing with the aftereffects of land mines, and that experience is being put to good use at the International Committee of the Red Cross Orthopedic Hospital in Kabul.

Land-mine victims come to the hospital to undergo rehabilitation and get fitted with artificial feet and legs, which are made in the center's workshop.

The center also provides education and vocational training for land-mine victims and other disabled Afghans.

"Many people, when they came here to this center, they are depressed and very sad," said Najmuddin, 37, a physiotherapist and hospital director. "But it is also a happy place, because people come here in wheelchairs or crawling and leave here walking on legs and feet."

Najmuddin lost both legs to a land mine as a teenager 19 years ago when he drove over a land mine in a dry riverbed in east Kabul. He stayed home for five years, "doing nothing," before he was fitted with a prosthesis at the hospital and eventually went to work there.

In one building at the ICRC hospital, patients are fitted with prosthetic legs and feet and learn how to walk again, striding uncertainly back and forth on flat ground before practicing inclines and stairs.

Two teenage land-mine victims were sitting on a bench at the end of the room one recent day. One was already wearing a prosthetic leg and the other was waiting to be fitted with his first. The teenager who was awaiting his prosthesis quizzed his friend.

"Will I be able to ride a bicycle again?" he asked. "I can ride a bicycle and a motorcycle," the other teenager replied. "And in the future I hope to learn to drive a car."

The teenager asking the questions, 15-year-old Shir Ahmed, was fleeing his Shamali plain village of Shakardara in 1998 when the Taliban ordered the boy and his family to use a footpath rather than the highway. Shir stepped on a land mine along the way.

"I was afraid of the mines before that, and I tried to be careful," he said. "But still it happened."

His village is too dangerous for habitation because of land mines, so he and his family still live as "internally displaced persons" in Kabul. But de-miners from Halo Trust are working to clear the village, and Shir and his family are counting the days until they return home next spring, he said.

"I feel depressed when I see all the mined areas," said Rahmadtullah, the Halo Trust de-mining supervisor. "I see the empty houses and I wonder, who is this person? He was a teacher. He worked for the government. After we clear this place, they will be able to come home and continue their lives, use their land, grow their gardens and use their house. When I see areas where people cannot come back yet, I feel sad."

(c) 2001, The Dallas Morning News.