kids

two stories i received today remind me, if it's not totally clear from the number of them i see begging for food and trying to sell me things, just how horribly rough it is to be an afghan kid (whether you live in kabul or kandahar or calais) . . .

just last night, i headed into a restaurant at about 7:30, and a v. young boy (maybe 3 or 4?) was standing outside by himself, asking for $1. when we came out about 10:30, he was out there alone, still asking for dollars. heartbreaking.

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GIRL KILLED IN RAF LEAFLET DROP IN AFGHANISTAN

LONDON (AFP) – A young Afghan girl died after a box of public information leaflets, dropped by a Royal Air Force plane over Afghanistan, landed on her, a newspaper said Wednesday. The Ministry of Defence said it was investigating the accident which it described as "highly regrettable," The Times said. The drop occurred over a rural area of Afghanistan's southern Helmand province on June 23 as part of an information campaign, the newspaper said. "Sadly one of the boxes failed to fully open and on landing caused serious injuries to an Afghan child," an RAF spokesman said. "The child was treated at the local medical facility in Kandahar where, despite the best efforts of staff, she died as a result of her injuries." Officials said it was not known what type of leaflet was being dropped. The accident comes amid anger in Afghanistan over civilian casualties in the conflict between foreign and Afghan forces and an increasingly bloody Taliban insurgency to secure the war-torn country.

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AFGHAN TEENAGERS CAUGHT ON SCHOOL BUS BOUND FOR BRITAIN

Daily Telegraph (UK), 2 AFG teenagers were caught on a school bus bound for Britain from France. The children, both believed to be about 14, crawled underneath a Travel De Courcey coach parked in a Calais supermarket carpark in a bid to evade border control. The coach had been hired by Exhall Grange School, Coventry, for a week-long trip and was making its way to catch a ferry for the return journey. The teenage stowaways used the coach's exhaust to climb on top of the engine of the coach in an attempt to smuggle themselves in to Britain. But the exhaust cracked as they stepped on it aiming poisonous fumes directly where they were hiding. The schoolchildren on board the bus were the same age as the would-be fellow passengers who could have been killed if they had not been found. Officials believe the Afghan boys may have lived at the recently-cleared controversial camp 'The Jungle' near Calais. Coach driver Dave Kelsey, 58, said he was shocked to find the boys hiding on his coach's engine when he went to investigate. "When I came back to the coach I opened the door and went round the back to open it up", he said. "When I looked inside I saw a yellow t-shirt on top of my engine and slammed the door shut straight away - I was shocked. "When the teenagers realised they had been rumbled one of the boys crawled out and ran off across the carpark while the other lay frozen, terrified on top of the engine."

British soldiers parked nearby helped the coach driver coax out the second boy who escaped and also fled. Mr Kelsey said the journey would have killed the stowaways if they had not been discovered. "If they hadn't have been caught, they would have cooked from the heat of the engine", he said. "Because they had stood on the exhaust to get on the engine, the pipe had cracked and fumes would have escaped and gone straight across the engine. "They must have been desperate, part of me felt sorry for them." The father-of-one said he had experienced stowaways hiding in his coach before. "Previously we have had a coach following another in France and they have spotted legs and rags hanging out from underneath the coach. "It is becoming a regular occurrence - someone is going to die." Managing director of Travel de Courcey, Mike de Courcey, said he would be warning his drivers of potential stowaways. Dan Hodges, spokesperson for Refugee charity, Refugee Action, said that the French government should do more to deal with their immigration problems. "This incident shows the desperate measures some people are prepared to go to escape and secure sanctuary for themselves", he said. "The French cleared the refugee camp last week with relative ease but haven't been able to properly deal with the problem."