The Kids Are Burning

This is really hard to read for any decent human being.

BAGRAM — Eight-year-old Razia was playing with her sisters at their house in the eastern Afghan province of Kapisa.

Suddenly, a shell rocked the house, leaving it in flames.

"The kids called out to me that I was burning but the explosion was so strong that for a moment I was deaf and couldn't hear anything," Razia's father, Aziz Rahman, told Reuters.

"And then my wife screamed 'the kids are burning' and she was also burning," he said, his face clouding at the memory.

The flames that consumed Rahman's family were fed by white phosphorous, a chemical that burns away flesh and bones, used by foreign troops.

Now, the Afghan child lays in a US hospital bed at the Bagram airbase, with her small fingernails still covered with flaking red polish.

Razia's face is an almost unrecognizable mess of burned tissue and half her scalp a bald scar.

Rahman said the shell that burned his child landed after a firefight near their house.

"Troops were on the road, the Taliban were on the mountain and we were at the house, sandwiched between them," said the bereaved father.

"When the Taliban began retreating, they fired artillery at them, 12 rounds. One hit my house."

The US military accuses the Taliban of shelling the area with weapons containing white phosphorous.

"An enemy mortar team, known to have been operating in that area, may have been responsible," said US Major Jennifer Willis.

But the Taliban deny the US claims.

"This is not true, it is just a mere allegation," spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.

Zaher Murad, an Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman, also said the government was not aware of the Taliban using white phosphorus in any attacks.

Razia is among hundreds of Afghan civilians being caught in the surging violence in war-torn Afghanistan.

More than 100 Afghan civilians were killed in US airstrikes in western Afghanistan last week.

Suffering

When Rahman saw his child on fire, he rushed her out to the yard, where he put out the flames with water stored to mix mud for a new wall.

Her hair came away in clumps in his hand.

Rahman raced inside to find two other children dead from head wounds.

He then hoisted Razia on his back and staggered towards the base where soldiers arranged a US airlift.

Colleen Fitzpatrick, a US military surgeon, confirmed the Afghan girl was hit by white phosphorous and had burns to 40 percent of her body.

"The way we treat that is with skin grafts...because her burns were so extensive we had to allow some of those donor sites to heal first, so we would go back to take skin from the same place more than once," Fitzpatrick said.

"Its never going to be normal, but there is still certainly room to improve on what she has."

Razia, who did not want her picture taken, is now suffering mentally as well as physically.

"My daughter is really sad and really lonely and she misses her family and mother," said Rahman.

"When I call home in the afternoon she talks with her mother and is always saying 'mum, I miss you'".