‘We Are Suffering With Our Flesh and Blood’

The Afghan toddler, not yet weaned from mother’s milk, sucks air through chapped lips as he rocks himself inside a tent he shares with his siblings 15 miles from the front.

He cannot grasp that his parents are gone, said the child’s oldest brother, rubbing eyes reddened by a river of tears. Fifteen-year-old Karim Ghafar says their mother and father were killed two weeks before by an American bomb that obliterated their four-room house a quarter-mile from a Taliban barracks.

For now, Karim, brothers Ismat, 10, and Abdul Rahim, 2, and sister Kharmashireen, 7, are safe, cared for in an oasis of canvas erected on a moonscape that stretches as far as the eye can see. There is plenty of food, water and blankets. There’s even breast milk, courtesy of an aunt who, like the children, arrived in recent days at Mille 46, Iran’s Red Crescent Society camp, named after a stone marker denoting Iran’s border four miles away.

Yet these orphans, like the other 548 residents here, have no energy and no hope. Children here don’t play, and the camp is deathly quiet, with most refugees staying close to the white canvas tents they call home.

“Explain to the world how much we Afghan people are suffering with our flesh and blood,” Abdul Ghafar Nabizadeh, a Kabul University agriculture professor, said Monday. He described traveling here from the capital for 15 days, mostly on foot and often hungry, with his wife and four children.

Mille 46 camp is a haven for Afghans who say they’ve witnessed an escalating number of civilian casualties in America’s war on terrorism. Many report losing a spouse, child or other relative, although the camp remains surprisingly empty--only one-fifth of the space available is in use.

Claims by refugees and Taliban officials of a high civilian death toll stand in stark contrast to official U.S. military reports. The Pentagon has said it is avoiding civilian targets and has expressed regret at unintended casualties. But Monday, Afghans at the camp recounted tales of being terrorized by Western attacks they can’t understand.

“For every Taliban killed, they slaughter 10 innocents,” insisted Gholam Dastegar Mosazahi, 55. He described how his 18-year-old wife, Fatimeh, was killed when a bomb struck their house in Herat as he washed his hands and feet at an outdoor spigot in preparation for noon prayers.

Nabizadeh, the agriculture professor, told of a bomb that dropped so close to his Kabul home that it shattered the floor-to-ceiling windows in his living room. “The bombing was so constant and the children were so frightened. They would cry and scream for me, ‘Baba, Baba!’ My wife and I would gather them close in whatever room we were in and huddle.”

With the permission of the opposition Northern Alliance, which controls the territory around Mille 46, Iran opened this camp in early October to provide aid without letting more refugees across its border; the country already hosts 2.6 million Afghans who have fled poverty and war.

A second camp called Mahkaki, opened over the weekend in Taliban-controlled territory half an hour’s drive north, already houses close to 600 refugees, Iranian officials said.

The United Nations as of Monday had not authorized its workers to go to the Iranian-run camps because of safety worries. At least one Western attack came uncomfortably close, claimed one official of Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan province. In that case, a Taliban radar installation and dirt airstrip were struck about two weeks ago, less than 10 miles from Mille 46, said the official, who asked not to be identified.

Red Crescent Society workers also reportedly were chased back into Iran by Taliban soldiers last week.

“It is difficult, it’s not easy, but it can be done,” Saed Mohsen Islamy, who oversees Mille 46 for the Red Crescent Society, said of keeping the camp running. For now, he added, Iran is able to handle the burden on its own, although foreign financial aid is a growing need.

Many refugees arrive here malnourished, but the bread, eggs, cans of string beans, rice and cooking oil are plentiful, so families are allowed to take what they want, Islamy said.

Thick felt blankets are also handed out, a mosque has been opened to give the camp residents a place to pray, and a truckload of new clothes, primary school books and balls for the children are on order, Islamy said.

Why there aren’t more refugees in the camp is a matter of debate, although most Iranian and foreign aid workers interviewed say it’s because Afghans feel safe enough at home, realizing that the United States and Britain are trying to hit only military and terrorist targets. Yet the potential for as many as 80,000 refugees to head toward Iran’s border remains, especially as food and water become increasingly scarce.

That reasoning was borne out by the latest load of refugees to arrive here late Monday afternoon. The weary passengers jumped down from the bed of an old Russian truck--three women, two men and three preschool-age children dressed in faded but colorful traditional northern Afghan clothes.

Said one of the new arrivals, Rahmodin Zamanzoie: “If people find out that there is a quiet place where they can rest and eat, many more will come here.”