‘Collateral damage’: Mortar costs 8-year-old a hand and a foot

Rahida does not speak much after mortar shell pierced through roof of her house

PESHAWAR: Eight-year-old Rahida is the picture of innocence—shy smiles and twinkling eyes. However, unlike others her age, Rahida lacks the youthful energy so typical of childhood; she does not play with other children, she doesn’t even talk much.

Four months ago, Rahida was just another playful child, playing hide and seek around the house, running out with the neighbour’s kids or playing hopscotch. But she can’t do that anymore; a mortar shell fell on her house in Yousaf Talab, Bara tehsil in Khyber Agency and took away from her a hand, a foot and her joie de vivre.

Now, Rahida’s elder sister, herself a 12-year-old child, carries her around like a toddler.



Yaqub, Rahida’s uncle, tells The Express Tribune she and the three other children who were injured in the attack were lucky to be alive. “One of my neighbours, Mera Gul, lost four members of his family in the attack—a woman and three boys,” he says.

According to Yaqub, when the military operation started in Khyber Agency, army aircraft dropped pamphlets which assured locals the operation was against terrorists only and innocent people will not be harmed. “Many people, including my family, decided not to leave their homes because of these assurances,” says Yaqub. “And then, one night, a mortar shell hit our house,” putting their lives in the crossfire of an ideological war fought in flesh and blood.

The shell fell on a room where Rahida, her siblings and cousins were sleeping, injuring four of them. While the other three children recovered in a hospital, doctors had to amputate Rahida’s hand and foot to save her life.

“She does not talk much and doesn’t play with other children. She doesn’t walk with one leg and her elder sister carries her out of the house like a baby whenever she wants to go out,” says Yaqub. Before a mortar shell shredded their house, Yaqub was a tractor driver. Now he is jobless and lives with his family in a rented house on Kohat Road.

“Aside from Rahida and our children, dozens of women and children have been injured in the military operation,” he says, adding the number of civilian casualties is higher than what is reported in the media.

“Civilians are always the victims; on one hand terrorists attack them, on the other hand, they become collateral damage in military operations against terrorists.”

Published in The Express Tribune, January 29^th, 2015.

In an earlier version of this article, the headline had the word leg instead of foot. The error is regretted.