Afghan young man loses leg by stray bullet, seeks rehabilitation

KABUL: Abdul Fawad, a resident of Afghanistan’s eastern Kapisa province, is visiting the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) hospital in Kabul to learn walking with his artificial leg, with his dream to become a construction engineer being shattered.

“I am 19 years old and also a graduate of high school but unfortunately sitting idle at home and able to do nothing because of the destructive war that has crippled me and eventually deprived me of everything,” he said with sorrow.

Reflecting his ordeal that took place several months ago, Fawad told Xinhua, “It was midnight and I was at home and fighting continued in the area but suddenly a bullet struck my leg and after I reached the hospital, the doctors cut it.”

The dejected Fawad said he had passed the university entry test several months earlier but was refused admission because of the injury. Now he is crippled for a lifetime.

The outcome of prolonged fighting in Afghanistan is nothing more than destruction of Afghanistan and killing of Afghans.

“Countless Afghan women have become widows and countless children become orphans due to the war in Afghanistan,” Fawad said, calling upon his compatriots to give up fighting and work for lasting peace in the country.

Since the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in mid-August and formation of the caretaker government on September 7, the war has finally ended in the war-torn country.

However, the war legacy is still tangible everywhere, as 200-300 war victims and disabled persons visit the ICRC hospital daily to receive medical treatments or to have artificial limbs, said Najmuddin Helal, head of ICRC’s Orthopedics Centre in Kabul.

The orthopedics centre only provided services to war victims at the beginning, but as time passes by, it now serves all disabled persons including crippled children and those whose limbs were damaged in traffic accidents.

“About 15,000 disabled persons register with the centre annually and about 2,000 of them are war victims who have lost their limbs due to the brutal conflicts,” Helal told Xinhua at his office.

Helal, also a war victim who lost his leg years ago, said the ICRC’s Orthopedic Centre in Kabul has been working over the past 33 years and has provided prosthetic limbs to thousands of Afghans.

His centre provides prosthetic limbs including legs for the war victims and teaches them walking with the limbs to help them better integrate into the society.