Two months ago, tiny Mahmuda did not look as if she would make it. She seemed ready to be another tiny fatality in Afghanistan where 16 of every 100 babies die at birth and four of every 10 do not live to see their fifth birthdays.
Then a year old, Mahmuda had feet little larger than a newborn's. Her face and eyes were yellow. She clung to her father's shoulders and wailed, a weak rattling sound. Today, her face is alert, though pinched from past want. Her eyes are clear. Her mother Rohela says she will live and peace is the answer. The family has even money to buy milk, and 40 kg (90 lbs) of maize are stored away for the winter. "Flour and other things have become cheaper. Life has become a bit easier," she told a reporter who returned to see the family after a first visit in early October.
Life is easier because the bristling frontline between the Taliban and Northern Alliance forces has disappeared. It had cut across the fertile, densely populated Shomali Plain north of the capital until the fundamentalist Taliban were routed last month. Bureau Report