Anand Gopal

KABUL, Mar 26 (IPS) - Jumakhan Said Muhammad was working on his land when he first heard the planes. “I looked up,” the farmer from Musa Qala, in the southern Helmand province, says. “Suddenly a plane flew by and I saw smoke rising from my house, which was down the road.”

Muhammad ran towards his home, where dozens of villagers were shouting his name as they surrounded his house. “The house was split in half by the bomb,” he recalls. “The walls were collapsed and crumbled. Blood was pouring from my nephew (seven-years-old) like it was water. He had shrapnel in his brain and stomach. I then saw my sister’s headscarf peeking out from underneath the rubble and so we raced desperately to save her. When we pulled her out from the wreckage I saw her body — she was cut completely in half. I started to scream.”

Muhammad’s sister and nephew are among a steady flow of civilian casualties caused by NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) bombardment, residents say. When such casualties started to rise last year — bombers destroyed Muhammad’s house in November — coalition forces pledged to change their tactics and ensure that civilians were not caught in such attacks.

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