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The story of the faceless girl | Nyheter | Expressen
AFGHANISTAN/USA. This feature contains a picture of Afghan girl Aisha, 4.
We would like to warn our readers that it is a strong image. At the same time it is an important image, as it shows a side to the war on terrorism that the US does not want the world to see.
It was on 7th September last year that an American drone hit the car she was travelling in. Everyone died – everyone except Aisha.
After receiving treatment in a hospital in Kabul, one day she was suddenly missing. Not even Aisha’s family were told what had happened.
Expressen’s Terese Cristiansson decided to try and find the answer to the question,
Where did the faceless girl go?
WARNING: STRONG IMAGE
Mejla
Aisha, 4, was used to seeing the American birds soaring above the village.
She knew that they were dangerous, her mum and dad had talked about it.
On the 7th of September 2013, she became one of the birds' victims.
Meya Jan is at home on his farm in the village of Gamber when he receives a phone call from the neighbouring village.
"Did you hear that a car has been hit on the road to Gamber?" asks his neighbour.
Meya Jan feels a knot building up in his stomach. Did his sister, Taher, and her husband, Abdul Rashid, make it out in time with their children Aisha, 4, and Jundullah, 1?
They had been in Kabul because Taher had been having pregnancy troubles and should be on their way home. He hopes that they stopped for a break in Asadabad, capital of the Kunar Province on the border to Pakistan.
It's the 7th of September but it is still hot, and they are likely to have stopped with some relatives for a rest. They aren't answering their mobiles, so he calls his relative, Hasrat Gul, who is in Asadabad.
"Do you know who drove up here today?"
"Yes, Abdul Rashid drove off earlier with Taher, the children and several other relatives that were going that way," he replied.
It's the beginning of October 2013 and the article we have come to write in Jalalabad in Eastern Afghanistan has fallen through. But as there was a lot of talk at the time about children being injured when they were forced to plant roadside bombs, we decide to visit the city's hospital instead.
Doctor Humayoon Zaheer says he hasn't had any such cases. Instead he starts talking about other people they have treated. Dismembered policemen, children with gunshot wounds from battle crossfire and women who have died in childbirth. He shows us round the hospital telling us about everything they need to be able to provide the best treatment.
Once inside his simple office he suddenly says,
"We had another case here. She came in a couple of weeks ago, in September. A little girl who had lost her face in a drone strike. It was a very unusual case. I'll never forget it."
..............
Meya Jan and the other villagers rush off down the road towards the site of the strike. People from the neighbouring village have already started gathering. It is late afternoon, but the September sunshine is still baking the green velvety mountains.
Meya Jan immediately sees that it is Abdul Rashid's red car that has been hit. The bombs have carved big chunks out of the ground and there's not much left of the car. Body parts lie scattered around the car.
A man from the neighbouring village says that they had seen a drone circling the area. The Kunar Province has long been a stronghold for the Taliban, Hezb-e-Islami and al-Qaida alike and the area has seen a lot of bloody battles. Most US bases are now deserted and there are few soldiers about. They have been replaced by drones - unmanned planes. The villagers call them ”American birds”.
The neighbour who saw the strike says that it first dropped two bombs and when the injured attempted to flee from the car, it dropped three more. Nobody survived, he says.
Around him on the ground Meya Jan recognises his family members, several women and children. There is blood everywhere and several of them are completely dismembered. He is filled with rage.
When the US troops arrived in 2001, a lot of Afghans believed that the US would come and help them. The country was divided after the Russian occupation, which was followed by a bloody civil war and the brutal Taliban regime. They had hoped that the country would be made stronger. But the opposite happened in Kunar.
Every time they tried to drive anywhere, they were stopped by US soldiers. Several family members had been arrested and later released. Because of the soldiers, the Taliban planted dangerous roadside bombs along the roads.
There may never have been a school for the children, but at least they used to sit under a large tree and learn to read and write. Ever since the drones began to circle overhead, they have been too scared to even sit there any more. Yet another generation without an education. Everyone was caught between the two conflicting sides.
Meya Jan and the others begin lifting the body parts and mangled bodies into a car. They drive them home to the courtyard and line them up in order to wrap and bury them.
15 dead, 3 of whom are women and 4 are children:
Abdul Rashid, 26, Taher, 24, Aisha, 4, Jundullah, 18 months, Abdul Rahman, 28, Khatima, 45, Nadia, 26, Soheil, 3, Osman, 19, Abdul Wahid, 25, Amir, 4, Asadullah, 28, Hayatollah 28, Abdul Wahid, 36, and Mohammad Ullah, 16.
Wiped out. Gone. Dead.
Suddenly they hear a voice.
"Water, water..."
............
Doctor Homayoon holds out the two page medical file about the faceless girl. It says that she arrived at the hospital on the 8th of September, about a month before our visit. Doctor Homayoon thinks she was 8 years old, but the file says she was 4. She has lost her eyes and nose, it says.
According to the file, she is from the village of Gamber in Kunar. I remember the drone strike in Gamber from other media and that President Karzai criticized the US for the civilian deaths. So there was a survivor?
I decide to try and find out what happened.
Civilians that are killed in air strikes, but above all in drone strikes, is the most sensitive defence issue that the US and President Barack Obama - also known as the drone president - has to deal with. Throughout his entire presidential term, Obama's military strategy has been to reduce the number of ground troops and replace them with unmanned air strikes piloted from a military base in the US. Primarily air strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Afghanistan.
This tactic wins points back home. The number of fallen US soldiers is zero. The material costs are even less. And supporters claim that drones are the most effective way to eliminate terrorism. Drone strikes have also killed high-ranking military jihadists in those three countries. In Afghanistan, this is a tactic that has driven large groups of Talibans out of certain areas.
But the strategy has also received a lot of criticism, as the unmanned attacks miss the targets, generate counter-productive unrest among the population and because the people controlling the attacks are emotionally detached from the targets. An ex-drone soldier, one of the people that pushed the bomb button, wrote in the British Guardian newspaper that the images they use do not even clearly show whether the people on the ground are carrying a rifle or a spade.
As a result, there has been criticism that the number of civilian victims is far too high. A much-discussed report from 2012 by Stanford and New York University documented 884 civilian victims, of which 176 were children, from 340 strikes since 2004 in Pakistan alone. Both the UN and Amnesty have demanded independent investigations into drone incidents.
The military term for civilian victims is collateral damage, in other words losses that are only to be expected during war.
The four year old girl that the doctors in Jalalabad are talking about is therefore collateral damage, if their stories are true.
.......
Everyone in the family hears the faint cry for water. It's coming from Aisha, Meya Jan's sister's four year old daughter. One of her hands is missing, her leg is bleeding and there is nothing left of her eyes or nose.
Someone screams,
"Aisha's alive, we must get her to a doctor!"
Meya Jan's older relatives lift Aisha into the car. It's starting to get dark, it's already 7pm and they have to drive a long way to reach help. If the girl is to survive, she needs help quickly. They set out onto the poor roads.
.....................
AFGHANISTAN/USA. This feature contains a picture of Afghan girl Aisha, 4.
We would like to warn our readers that it is a strong image. At the same time it is an important image, as it shows a side to the war on terrorism that the US does not want the world to see.
It was on 7th September last year that an American drone hit the car she was travelling in. Everyone died – everyone except Aisha.
After receiving treatment in a hospital in Kabul, one day she was suddenly missing. Not even Aisha’s family were told what had happened.
Expressen’s Terese Cristiansson decided to try and find the answer to the question,
Where did the faceless girl go?
WARNING: STRONG IMAGE
Mejla
Aisha, 4, was used to seeing the American birds soaring above the village.
She knew that they were dangerous, her mum and dad had talked about it.
On the 7th of September 2013, she became one of the birds' victims.
Meya Jan is at home on his farm in the village of Gamber when he receives a phone call from the neighbouring village.
"Did you hear that a car has been hit on the road to Gamber?" asks his neighbour.
Meya Jan feels a knot building up in his stomach. Did his sister, Taher, and her husband, Abdul Rashid, make it out in time with their children Aisha, 4, and Jundullah, 1?
They had been in Kabul because Taher had been having pregnancy troubles and should be on their way home. He hopes that they stopped for a break in Asadabad, capital of the Kunar Province on the border to Pakistan.
It's the 7th of September but it is still hot, and they are likely to have stopped with some relatives for a rest. They aren't answering their mobiles, so he calls his relative, Hasrat Gul, who is in Asadabad.
"Do you know who drove up here today?"
"Yes, Abdul Rashid drove off earlier with Taher, the children and several other relatives that were going that way," he replied.
It's the beginning of October 2013 and the article we have come to write in Jalalabad in Eastern Afghanistan has fallen through. But as there was a lot of talk at the time about children being injured when they were forced to plant roadside bombs, we decide to visit the city's hospital instead.
Doctor Humayoon Zaheer says he hasn't had any such cases. Instead he starts talking about other people they have treated. Dismembered policemen, children with gunshot wounds from battle crossfire and women who have died in childbirth. He shows us round the hospital telling us about everything they need to be able to provide the best treatment.
Once inside his simple office he suddenly says,
"We had another case here. She came in a couple of weeks ago, in September. A little girl who had lost her face in a drone strike. It was a very unusual case. I'll never forget it."
..............
Meya Jan and the other villagers rush off down the road towards the site of the strike. People from the neighbouring village have already started gathering. It is late afternoon, but the September sunshine is still baking the green velvety mountains.
Meya Jan immediately sees that it is Abdul Rashid's red car that has been hit. The bombs have carved big chunks out of the ground and there's not much left of the car. Body parts lie scattered around the car.
A man from the neighbouring village says that they had seen a drone circling the area. The Kunar Province has long been a stronghold for the Taliban, Hezb-e-Islami and al-Qaida alike and the area has seen a lot of bloody battles. Most US bases are now deserted and there are few soldiers about. They have been replaced by drones - unmanned planes. The villagers call them ”American birds”.
The neighbour who saw the strike says that it first dropped two bombs and when the injured attempted to flee from the car, it dropped three more. Nobody survived, he says.
Around him on the ground Meya Jan recognises his family members, several women and children. There is blood everywhere and several of them are completely dismembered. He is filled with rage.
When the US troops arrived in 2001, a lot of Afghans believed that the US would come and help them. The country was divided after the Russian occupation, which was followed by a bloody civil war and the brutal Taliban regime. They had hoped that the country would be made stronger. But the opposite happened in Kunar.
Every time they tried to drive anywhere, they were stopped by US soldiers. Several family members had been arrested and later released. Because of the soldiers, the Taliban planted dangerous roadside bombs along the roads.
There may never have been a school for the children, but at least they used to sit under a large tree and learn to read and write. Ever since the drones began to circle overhead, they have been too scared to even sit there any more. Yet another generation without an education. Everyone was caught between the two conflicting sides.
Meya Jan and the others begin lifting the body parts and mangled bodies into a car. They drive them home to the courtyard and line them up in order to wrap and bury them.
15 dead, 3 of whom are women and 4 are children:
Abdul Rashid, 26, Taher, 24, Aisha, 4, Jundullah, 18 months, Abdul Rahman, 28, Khatima, 45, Nadia, 26, Soheil, 3, Osman, 19, Abdul Wahid, 25, Amir, 4, Asadullah, 28, Hayatollah 28, Abdul Wahid, 36, and Mohammad Ullah, 16.
Wiped out. Gone. Dead.
Suddenly they hear a voice.
"Water, water..."
............
Doctor Homayoon holds out the two page medical file about the faceless girl. It says that she arrived at the hospital on the 8th of September, about a month before our visit. Doctor Homayoon thinks she was 8 years old, but the file says she was 4. She has lost her eyes and nose, it says.
According to the file, she is from the village of Gamber in Kunar. I remember the drone strike in Gamber from other media and that President Karzai criticized the US for the civilian deaths. So there was a survivor?
I decide to try and find out what happened.
Civilians that are killed in air strikes, but above all in drone strikes, is the most sensitive defence issue that the US and President Barack Obama - also known as the drone president - has to deal with. Throughout his entire presidential term, Obama's military strategy has been to reduce the number of ground troops and replace them with unmanned air strikes piloted from a military base in the US. Primarily air strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Afghanistan.
This tactic wins points back home. The number of fallen US soldiers is zero. The material costs are even less. And supporters claim that drones are the most effective way to eliminate terrorism. Drone strikes have also killed high-ranking military jihadists in those three countries. In Afghanistan, this is a tactic that has driven large groups of Talibans out of certain areas.
But the strategy has also received a lot of criticism, as the unmanned attacks miss the targets, generate counter-productive unrest among the population and because the people controlling the attacks are emotionally detached from the targets. An ex-drone soldier, one of the people that pushed the bomb button, wrote in the British Guardian newspaper that the images they use do not even clearly show whether the people on the ground are carrying a rifle or a spade.
As a result, there has been criticism that the number of civilian victims is far too high. A much-discussed report from 2012 by Stanford and New York University documented 884 civilian victims, of which 176 were children, from 340 strikes since 2004 in Pakistan alone. Both the UN and Amnesty have demanded independent investigations into drone incidents.
The military term for civilian victims is collateral damage, in other words losses that are only to be expected during war.
The four year old girl that the doctors in Jalalabad are talking about is therefore collateral damage, if their stories are true.
.......
Everyone in the family hears the faint cry for water. It's coming from Aisha, Meya Jan's sister's four year old daughter. One of her hands is missing, her leg is bleeding and there is nothing left of her eyes or nose.
Someone screams,
"Aisha's alive, we must get her to a doctor!"
Meya Jan's older relatives lift Aisha into the car. It's starting to get dark, it's already 7pm and they have to drive a long way to reach help. If the girl is to survive, she needs help quickly. They set out onto the poor roads.
.....................
