CASUALTY. I've been lucky. I grew up surrounded by prominent builders and magnificent, inspiring buildings. In the 1920s, my grandfather helped build the once-prominent Ministry of Justice, across the street from where I later went to school in a village some 10 km southwest of Kabul. Today, the justice building stands as a casualty of war.
The past two decades of warand more than 10 million land mineshave claimed the lives of more than 2 million Afghans, made refugees of another 6 million and left 1 million disabled. With 80% of the country's homes and villages destroyed, 80% of the population has been displaced. In the worst kind of poverty, children have suffered the most. Many have been taken to neighboring countries to be auctioned off.