In a corner of Kabul, a long-running tragedy quietly plays on

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Legs line the shelves and arms hang from hooks, each one a portrait, in molded propylene, of the human tragedy of Afghanistan.

Take the shepherd girl Tawsana, whose sheep led her onto a land mine that exploded and blew her leg away, leaving her dragging herself across her nomad family's floor.

Or take Moshala, who as a 6-year-old ran terrified with her father from the Russian bombs -- and straight into a minefield. First one mine killed her father and took her left hand. Then the girl stumbled across another. It took her left leg.

Then there's Sabara, who couldn't outrun the American bombs one midnight last fall, when six family members were killed on a road lined with refugees. Next week, in a bittersweet homecoming, she finally returns to her five children, with a leg of plastic and steel.

An uneasy peace may be settling in, but the tragedy of Afghanistan lingers on, nowhere more poignantly than among a white cluster of buildings on a Kabul hillside where, for 14 years, the International Committee of the Red Cross has produced artificial legs, arms, feet and hands that have helped 20,000 Afghans overcome the disabilities that war has inflicted on them.

Country of minefields

This week in Kabul, international activists, diplomats and Afghan officials are gathering to draw new attention to what is probably the world's most mine-afflicted country. The new Afghan leadership took the occasion to announce its acceptance of the 5-year-old treaty banning land mines, a global pact signed by 143 nations.

At the Red Cross orthopedic center, 80 percent of those with amputated legs or hands are land mine victims. For them, the meaning of a treaty outlawing these indiscriminate weapons is felt in the daily pain of an amputee's life.

"Those who use land mines are very bad people," said Mahmoud, 55, whose left leg was lost to a mine 15 years ago. "They don't realize they can kill their own brothers."

During the American bombing of Kabul last October and November, Najmuddin's staff at times had to evacuate their disabled charges from the dormitory and examination wards to a crowded cellar shelter. The anti-Taliban attacks were often pinpoint, but sometimes misguided, too.

An estimated 200,000 Afghans have been killed or maimed by land mines in 23 years of war.

When he was told of the treaty banning mines, Mahmoud, leaning on a metal crutch, nodded approvingly and clearly spoke for millions of his countrymen.

"Look at me! I lost my leg. We don't want our children losing theirs, too."