Forgotten victims

Who killed Asaq Mohammed? His uncle watched him die. Soon after the United States started bombing Afghanistan last autumn the small boy, just under two years old, fled his home on the back of a donkey with his parents and other family members.
For four days they travelled across mountains on snow-covered tracks. At night their only protection against the cold was a handful of blankets. They had no tents.

After three years of drought everyone was already weak with hunger before they set off from the village of Ghorambay in western Afghanistan. The long trek was too much for the most vulnerable. When they reached the town of Owbeh exhausted, Asaq and his six-month-old brother, Abdul Rahman, did not have the strength to recover. Their short lives slipped away.

Seyd Mohammed believes his two nephews would still be alive if they had not been forced to flee. "We were hopeful they wouldn't have died if we had stayed here", he says sadly as he stands outside his home.