'They were shooting at people running away'
UN | 05.07.2002 12:27
“My heart is burning in anger,” Mr Malik said. “The Americans should be put on trial.” He denied that there were any al-Qaeda or Taleban fugitives in the village, as the visiting American soldiers had suggested. Reporters who visited the scene shortly after the attack found no evidence of any military presence.
THE celebrations were in full swing, with hundreds of guests preparing for a wedding singing and dancing in the beam of a tractor’s headlights. Out of the darkness a warplane descended, sending rockets exploding through the crowd.
Survivors of the party in Kakarak, southern Afghanistan, yesterday described the events after they came under fire in the early hours of Monday from American gunships. They told of a sustained attack from the air, with wedding guests being chased and shot dead as they tried to escape.
“The first rocket hit the women’s section. The second rocket hit the men’s section,” Ahmed Jan Agha, a musician who was playing at the wedding, told Associated Press in Kakarak. “Then everybody started running. The aeroplanes were shooting rockets at the people running away. They were chasing us.”
Many of those who died had been cut down by shrapnel as they tried to seek shelter from the barrage. “A piece of iron sliced the woman’s neck in front of me. In a split- second it was not on her body,” Naseema, a 15-year-old survivor, told Reuters from hospital in Kandahar, where she was taken for treatment.
“It was like an abattoir,” another survivor, who would not give her name, said. “There was blood everywhere.”
Those who had fled said that they hid in nearby orchards and fields for four hours as the rockets continued to rain down. Villagers said that when the aircraft finally disappeared into the darkness, US troops accompanied by Afghan fighters arrived in the village and told everyone to go inside their houses, allowing only the wounded to leave.
Twenty-five of those who died were members of one family, attending the party at the home of Mohammed Sherif, whose son, Abdul Malik, was to marry the next day. Mr Sherif, whose brother is a close ally of President Karzai, was one of the 40 people who died. However, contrary to first reports, the bride and groom survived: they were in a neighbouring village.
Survivors picked their way through the rubble yesterday, pointing out shrapnel, bloodstains and barely recognisable human remains. Forty pairs of shoes, one for each of the dead, were piled up at the front door of the groom’s family home.
“My heart is burning in anger,” Mr Malik said. “The Americans should be put on trial.” He denied that there were any al-Qaeda or Taleban fugitives in the village, as the visiting American soldiers had suggested. Reporters who visited the scene shortly after the attack found no evidence of any military presence.
Survivors of the party in Kakarak, southern Afghanistan, yesterday described the events after they came under fire in the early hours of Monday from American gunships. They told of a sustained attack from the air, with wedding guests being chased and shot dead as they tried to escape.
“The first rocket hit the women’s section. The second rocket hit the men’s section,” Ahmed Jan Agha, a musician who was playing at the wedding, told Associated Press in Kakarak. “Then everybody started running. The aeroplanes were shooting rockets at the people running away. They were chasing us.”
Many of those who died had been cut down by shrapnel as they tried to seek shelter from the barrage. “A piece of iron sliced the woman’s neck in front of me. In a split- second it was not on her body,” Naseema, a 15-year-old survivor, told Reuters from hospital in Kandahar, where she was taken for treatment.
“It was like an abattoir,” another survivor, who would not give her name, said. “There was blood everywhere.”
Those who had fled said that they hid in nearby orchards and fields for four hours as the rockets continued to rain down. Villagers said that when the aircraft finally disappeared into the darkness, US troops accompanied by Afghan fighters arrived in the village and told everyone to go inside their houses, allowing only the wounded to leave.
Twenty-five of those who died were members of one family, attending the party at the home of Mohammed Sherif, whose son, Abdul Malik, was to marry the next day. Mr Sherif, whose brother is a close ally of President Karzai, was one of the 40 people who died. However, contrary to first reports, the bride and groom survived: they were in a neighbouring village.
Survivors picked their way through the rubble yesterday, pointing out shrapnel, bloodstains and barely recognisable human remains. Forty pairs of shoes, one for each of the dead, were piled up at the front door of the groom’s family home.
“My heart is burning in anger,” Mr Malik said. “The Americans should be put on trial.” He denied that there were any al-Qaeda or Taleban fugitives in the village, as the visiting American soldiers had suggested. Reporters who visited the scene shortly after the attack found no evidence of any military presence.
UN