Afghan children fall prey to killers who trade human organs

[maddezmom]

By Mike Collett-White in Kandahar
07 June 2004


Ismail is only 10 years old, but the horrors of the past three months will be with him to his grave. He was rescued by the Afghan authorities on Friday, after being kidnapped in March with his brother Ibrahim, 6.

Quietly, he told seeing the bodies of four boys of about his age that had been cut open. "They took us to a mountain where I saw the bodies," he said. "They had taken out the organs. They were on the ground at the bottom of this mountain, then the men took them away. They were boys of about our age. I thought I would not live long when I saw them. I was scared."

The intelligence chief for the south, Dr Abdullah Laghmani, said local forces were searching for the four bodies, having found one already in Panjwai district to the southwest of Kandahar, where he is based. "We have information they killed five children, cutting their heads off and opening their stomachs to extract their kidneys," Dr Laghmani said.

He believes the kidnappers, involved in a worrying rise in the number of disappearing children across the country, planned to sell the kidneys in Pakistan, where patients are prepared to pay large amounts of money for healthy organs. There also appear to be other motives, including extortion.

more: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=529009

[LittleApple81]

1. What can you say...I just want to cry. If this is true, it is so

despicable it is beyond words. I say "if this is true" because I have read similar stories from other countries and some of them have been debunked. I hope and pray that these are not true...IT IS SO HORRIBLE what we do to each other (people doing this are PEOPLE... they belong to the same humanity we belong to...)

[Turbineguy]

2. I recall seeing similar warnings

about traveling with your children in parts of Russia.

[Pert_UK]

3. I just don't buy it......

The story, I mean, not the boy's kidneys......

It just doesn't seem to add up, and moreover there have been so many Urban Legend stories that said the same thing, and they've all been debunked (according to Snopes).

Having said that, the Independent is a quality paper, and there have been cases of doctors tricking patients out of kidneys in India, so maybe it's true.

In which case, it's horrendous....but I just don't buy it.

[Beacho]

4. Snopes-Bait

They'll be on this in no time.

Similiar stories have been floating around about Africa and Central America.

Variation on the 'waking up in the bathtub with a missing kidney' story

[NNN0LHI]

5. Organ traffic link in Mexico murders

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2993831.stm

The Mexican attorney general's office says it is investigating the possibility that a number of women murdered in the northern border town of Ciudad Juarez may have been killed by organ traffickers.

In the last 10 years more than 300 women have been murdered in the town, with several hundred more missing.

Despite a number of convictions for some of the crimes, the killings have continued.

This is just one more twist in the series of killings in Ciudad Juarez.

In a press conference in the town of Chihuahua, federal prosecutor Carlos Vega said 14 of the victims may have been kidnapped and killed so that their organs could be sold.

more

Now ask yourself something. Who could afford to purchase organs on the black market? Me? You? Uh, uhh. Rich bastards. Thats who.

Don