ASADABAD (Pajhwok): A 12-year-old Meraj BiBi was the only survived person from an airstrike by foreign troops in eastern Kunar province more than a decade ago.
Hailing from the Petawo village of Ghaziabad district,
Meraj Bibi currently lived in her uncle house, she was five-month-old when her house was struck by fighter jets in which 14 members of her family were killed and she lost her leg. Meraj Bibi did not remember the incident in which she lost 15 members of her family including her father and mother.
Meraj Bibi said: “People tells me that your parents, two sisters, two brothers, three uncles and their wives and their two children martyred in the bombardment of American air forces, but I do not remember that incident and I don’t know how the faces of my parents looked like! I feel very bad”. She said: “when I see other parents who love their children, I become upset and wish to have the love of my parents!!”
“I mess my mother a lot, if I could see her I would kiss her in face, I am so unfortunate for not having the love of my parents, I don’t know how they looked”. Meraj Bibi said.
The other agony of Meraj BeBe is that her leg is amputated; she walks with a wooden stick.
“I live in my uncle’s house, they love me, but I am so unfortunate because I have not been blessed with my parents in my life and my leg is also amputated so I walk with the help of a wooden stick, my uncle is also not economically fit to make and artificial leg for me”. She said.
Mujahid, the uncle of Meraj Bibi told Pajhwok Afghan News: “US air force bombed our house on February 18, 2011 which left us bereaved forever”.
“The disability of Meraj Bibi is very annoying for me, she has no leg and she is not blessed with her parent in her life as well,” Mujahid said.
“We try not to talk about the story of Meraj Bibi parents at all in our family, but she is very clever as she asks other members of the family about her parents and the other martyred ones, how was my mother? Why were they martyred? If they were alive they would have given me so much love”. Mujahid added. He said, on the day of the airstrike, 40 people were martyred in that village, including women and children and the 15 members of their family.
He said: “I am not economically sound to make an artificial leg for Meraj Bibi. Mujahid asked the government to provide assistance to the victims, martyrs and disabled of the previous wars. He said: “The then president Hamid Karzai had promised us multiple times to help us but he has never put his promise into practice”.
But Maulavi Najibullah Hanif, the head of information and culture department said, that the government is committed to the assistance of the victims of the previous wars. Hanif said: “We struggle to provide on time assistance to all the victims of the wars and their families and to provide education opportunities to their orphans and other children without guardians”.
