NP? strange fruit

[Doug Millison]

...some references to matters that some of you discounted or otherwise
pooh-poohed awhile ago:

[...] "The team heard how girls as young as ten are being offered for
marriage in exchange for bags of flour in a desperate struggle for survival
in parts of Herat and Farah provinces in western Afghanistan. 'We saw
children digging in the fields for roots to eat and use as firewood. Leaves
from the trees were also being eaten,' says John Watt, operations manager
at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies."
(www.ifrc.org February 8, 2002)

2. Ghaleh Shafer, Afghanistan: "10-year-old Mohebolah Seraj went out to
collect wood for his family, and thought he had happened upon a food
packet. He picked it up and lost three fingers in an explosion. Doctors say
he will probably lose his whole hand.... his mother, Sardar Seraj...said
that she cried and told the doctors not to cut off her son's whole hand...
The hospital where her son is being cared for is a grim place, lacking
power and basic sanitation. In one room lay Muhammad Ayoub, a 20-year-old
who was in the house when the cluster bomb initially landed. He lost a leg
and his eyesight, and his face was severely disfigured. He moaned in
agony.... Hospital officials said that a 16-year-old had been decapitated."
(Howard Zinn, The Others, The Nation, February 11, 2002)  [...]

http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2002-05/25edwards.cfm