Recently, the BBC published a video report by Karen Zarindast about the number of people disabled by war in Afghanistan. They quote the Red Cross as the source of their figures:
Decades of war have left some 800,000 people disabled in Afghanistan.
The Red Cross, has seven centres across the country helping them out.
A centre in Kabul, which recruits from the disabled community – receives some 300 disabled people a day.
This caught my eye. The population of Afghanistan is 34,385,068. If this report is true, that means one in every forty three people or 2.3% of the entire Afghan population has been maimed in the ongoing war. That is a horrendous number and needs far more attention than it is getting.
If this number is not true, then that needs cleared too, because it reflects very badly on all sides of the war and the cost in human suffering.
A request: If you are a journalist or know a journalist who can verify this, could you do it and update me too? Ideally, should be investigated and reported widely, but this at least?