Young girl is killed by RAF leaflet drop in Afghanistan

[FarCenter]

A young Afghan girl suffered fatal injuries after a box of public information leaflets, dropped from an RAF transport aircraft over Helmand province, landed on top of her.

The accident, which the 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.

<SNIP>http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6854513.ece

[ShortnFiery]

1. What is this WWII. Don't we have a better way of getting the news out?

How very tragic to take a young innocent life. :cry:

[proteus_lives]

2. Please add a tag informing DUers that pic isn't the girl that was killed.

Some might be too young to remember that photo.

[Confusious]

4. Not there

little electricity, even fewer phones, probably around 1900's.

Just explaining the situation there, not condoning it.

[autorank]

3. This is to stur and so painfully ironic. Who is writing the script anyway? n/t k*r