Afghan civilians hurt in U.S. airstrikes trickling into Pakistani hospitals
By LAURA KING The Associated Press 10/24/01 2:49 PM QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) -- The explosions were so loud and so close that the Afghan family, cowering in their mud-brick home, decided to make a run for a relative's house. But before they could gather the children together, the roof fell in. Now the wounded survivors -- a baby boy, a 10-year-old girl, their mother and her brother-in-law -- lie in Pakistani hospital beds with burns, shrapnel injuries and broken bones. They are among the first of what their doctor fears will be a wave of war-wounded arriving from Afghanistan. Hamidullah Gul, nine months old, huddled Wednesday on an adult-sized hospital bed, a tiny bundle on its wide expanse. His eyes were swollen and bruised, ringed with dried blood. A few feet away was his semiconscious mother, Ridi Gul, moaning faintly and swathed in bandages. The treatment available in this hospital in the Pakistani frontier city of Quetta did not appear particularly sophisticated. The long, bare corridors reeked of urine, the beds were covered with stained sheets and rough blankets, and none of the patients was hooked up to any kind of intravenous drip. Even so, their doctor insisted the care they were getting was far superior to that available in Afghanistan. The family came from Rozgan Wiliat, an outlying district of the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, a Taliban stronghold that has come under round-the-clock bombardment. Its hospitals are said to be overwhelmed, and the city is without power and water. Of those hurt in the airstrikes, relatively few have found their way to Pakistan, even though the border -- closed to refugees -- is open to those urgently requiring medical treatment. This hospital, Al-Khimat, was treating only five such cases, and there were seven others on Wednesday at Quetta's main hospital. Afghanistan's Taliban rulers report the number of those wounded in U.S.-led airstrikes that began Oct. 7 now runs into the thousands. The figure cannot be independently verified. The Pentagon has not provided any estimate of civilian casualties, although it has acknowledged some strikes have gone astray. Civilians are never deliberately targeted, it says. "We are not going into the cities to attack the cities. What hits may have occurred in residential areas are rare mistakes -- or rare errors," Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem told reporters in Washington on Wednesday. The presence of the wounded is politically complicated for Pakistan, which has allied itself with the United States in the confrontation over terror suspect Osama bin Laden. Groups with friendly contacts with the Taliban have been arranging the transport of some Afghan patients. The director of Al-Khimat hospital, Dr. Ata Ur Rahman, is a leading activist in Jamiat Ulema Islami, one of Pakistan's most staunchly pro-Taliban political parties. Only one member of the family, 20-year-old Fazalrahim, who like many Afghans uses one name, was well enough to describe what had happened to them. On Saturday night, he said, the extended family of 19 people ate a simple evening meal, listening to the roaring of warplanes overhead. By 11 p.m., they were hearing explosions that were close enough to rattle the house. Frightened, they discussed whether to flee to a relative's house nearby, and agreed they should take the children and run. It was too late. Fazalrahim said he heard a deafening crash, and the house suddenly crumbled. Although his right foot was broken and nearly crushed, he was trying to find other family members in the dark when a second explosion sent more debris flying. A wall collapsed. In all, he said, 12 people died -- three younger brothers, four nephews, four sisters, and his mother. "I'm so angry at America," he said, struggling to sit up in bed while his doctor urged him to lie still and be calm. Fazalrahim's brother survived and stayed behind in Afghanistan to care for two other uninjured children. Pakistani authorities are trying to ensure that the wounded receive only initial emergency care here, and return to Afghanistan as soon as they are well enough. This family's doctor, Fahima Rezai, said even though their injuries were serious, she expected them all to be returned to Afghanistan within a few weeks. Last week, she said, the hospital treated a Taliban fighter with a leg wound so severe the limb had to be amputated -- but within days, he was sent back. In the case of very gravely injured patients, she said, the journey from Afghanistan is simply too arduous to risk. This family endured a nine-hour ambulance journey on rough roads to get to Pakistan -- this on the heels of three days of makeshift care in a Kandahar clinic. Baby Hamidullah, so small that no one dared give him pain medication for fear of an overdose, wailed for almost the entire trip. His mother, drifting in and out of consciousness, tried to comfort him, her brother-in-law said. Rezai, an Afghan refugee herself, said treating these patients reminded her of the death of her own mother in a bombing eight years ago, during the Afghan civil war. "That's why I became a doctor, to help people like this," she said. "If this war goes on, I think I will be treating many more of them."
