KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - The deadly blast of a mortar shell that grief-stricken Afghan villagers say came from Canadian artillery claimed a third young victim Tuesday when a four-year-old child who'd been injured in the explosion died in a Kandahar city hospital.
Hospital officials identified the child as Juma Gul, one of three being treated at Marwais hospital following the blast that killed two others Monday -- Gul's 13-year-old brother Sadar Mohammed and his 12-year-old friend Amed Jan -- near the village of Salehan, west of Kandahar.
Although the circumstances remained murky, Afghan officials said that prior to the blast, the children had likely been scavenging the fields near the village for bits of scrap metal -- a common practice in a dirt-poor country littered with the often deadly detritus of war.
Azeem Khan, head of the Saleha village council, said he believes the children -- who were in an area that had been used for range practice by Canadian soldiers the day before -- found unexploded munitions and were bringing home their discovery when the blast occurred.
"The children were playing with that (when) it exploded on them," Khan said.
Afghan provincial police officials, who initially accused the Taliban of firing a rocket at the children, agreed Khan's scenario was likely, but said Tuesday the investigation would continue.
The deaths prompted a gruesome protest Monday in Kandahar city, where the young bodies of the first two victims were put on display amid shouts of "Death to the Canadians" from the angry mob.
Ironically, the village of Salehan, located inside the notorious Taliban redoubt of Panjwaii, includes a separate community for the many local Afghans who have been left maimed and handicapped by years of living in the midst of armed conflict.
"It is the place where blind and disabled people live," resident Abdul Hadi said of the area, known as Mohammed Bin Rashid Village in honour of its founder and principal financier, who is best known in the Middle East as the ruler of Dubai.
Many of its residents were still seething Tuesday with anger and resentment towards the military. In interviews Tuesday with The Canadian Press, witnesses -- including the grief-stricken father -- continued to insist that the children had been victims of a rocket attack.
Ghazi Toor Jan, an ex-mujahedeen fighter during the Soviet occupation who is blind in one eye, admitted he only heard the blast and didn't actually see what happened to his children. But he insisted he heard the sound of an incoming mortar prior to the explosion.
"I can understand from sound that it was mortar and was fired by Canadians," said Jan, 47.
Other witnesses, such as Mohammad Zahir, angrily pointed to the crater in the gravel road where the children had been walking.
"It was not some stuff (that) children found and were playing with, because it made a crater in the land (that) shows it was fired from somewhere," Zahir told local journalists who toured the scene.
The Canadian military refused to comment Tuesday on the latest developments or say what its own investigation has revealed thus far.
Government officials, including the provincial police chief, have been trying to convince locals -- with limited success -- that it's unlikely Canadians fired on the children.
"The villagers don't want to understand anything," said an exasperated Khan, a long-time councillor.
Many just want the thud of incoming artillery rounds and the persistent rattle of small-arms fire, whether it be from coalition forces or the Taliban, to end.
More often than not, the din of war is not from battles, but from practice: Canadian troops regularly conduct range and show-of-force exercises outside of the village, firing 155-mm artillery shells and rolling 64-tonne Leopard 2A6M tanks along the edge of the community.
That leaves the area littered with scrap, a commodity that can be lucrative, at least by Afghan standards.
Indeed, picking up bits of metal for recycling is among the few ways of earning a living in the desperately poor district of southern Afghanistan. But it's also a perilous occupation, given the country's reputation as one of the most heavily mined areas in the world.
In addition to the ever-present Taliban threat of roadside bombs, Afghanistan's long history of military conflict also means the country is strewn with unexploded ordnance.
Last year, more than 82,000 anti-personnel mines and 900 anti-tank mines were cleared in Afghanistan, most of it dating back to the 1980s and the days of the Soviet occupation, according to the United Nations.
Even still, four million Afghans live in mine-infested areas.
The international community set 2013 as the date for the country to be completely mine-free, but the effort has been chronically underfunded, according to the world body.
-- With files from A.R. Khan in Salehan
