Source:
The AustralianA YOUNG Afghan girl suffered fatal injuries after a box of public information leaflets, dropped from a British RAF transport aircraft over Helmand province, landed on top of her.
The accident, which the UK Ministry of Defence said yesterday was "highly regrettable", is being investigated.The incident has taken some time to emerge. The leaflet drop occurred on June 23. The crew of an RAF C130 Hercules had been flying over rural parts of the province to try to reach local people with a leaflet campaign.
The boxes of leaflets are supposed to open up in mid-air, scattering the literature over a wide area. "But on this occasion one of the boxes failed to open, and the young girl was hit," an official said.Defence sources said it was unfortunate that the injured girl was taken to a local hospital in Kandahar, neighbouring Helmand province, where she died after being given emergency treatment.
"Normally, if a civilian is injured, for example, in crossfire, British soldiers will take him or her to the British field hospital at Camp Bastion where the best possible medical treatment is provided. In this case, we didn't know about the girl until someone came forward later, after she had died, to tell us what happened," the sources said.
The girl is one of a long line of innocent victims of the war, with some 1,500 civilians killed by violence in Afghanistan so far this year. A total of 68 per cent of these deaths were caused by insurgent attacks and 23 per cent by Afghan or Nato troops. The reasons for the rest are unspecified.
more:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26145681-2703,00.html
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