The seven amputee children from the Mirza Gul family attended their group appointment at the ...

The seven amputee children from the Mirza Gul family attended their group appointment at the International Committee for the Red Cross' (ICRC) orthopaedic centre in Jalalabad City, the capital of Nangarhar Province in eastern Afghanistan, in preparation for receiving prostheses to replace the legs that had to be amputated after being horrifically damaged in an accident with an Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) on April 29, 2018.

The family, headed by 65-year-old Hamisha Gul, lives in Surkh Rod District in Nangarhar. In the early hours of April 29 the year this photo was taken, fighting between Taliban and Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers had erupted, as it often did, and the 23 members of the extended family living in the high-walled compound sheltered until morning, by which time the fighting had died out. When the children walked from the house toward school soon after 6AM, in a field not far from the house they came across an RPG, presumably from the night's fighting, that had failed to explode. The children carried it home where, outside the compound gate it was dropped, at which point it exploded. Four members of the family were killed and nine legs of seven surviving children had to be amputated.

The last of the children were discharged from Nangarhar Regional Hospital on May 31, a month after they were admitted for extensive treatment. They returned to the family home in Surkh Rod where they convalesced and received tuition from a teacher provided by a local charity organisation.

At the ICRC orthopaedic centre, on this occasions, the children were taught how to use walking aids including crutches for those with single amputations and wheelchairs for the two boys with double amputations. Some, like Rabia (in green head scarf) and Mangal (in grey shalwar kameez) were only attempting crutches for the first time because injuries to their remaining foot and leg had taken longer to heal than those of the others.

ICRC staff also assessed the children and their states of their stumps in preparation for the fitting of prostheses in the coming weeks and months. Taken at 13:43:12