A handicapped man walks with a prosthetic leg at a rehabilitation center run by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, Nov. 30, 2025. (Photo by Saifurahman Safi/Xinhua)
KABUL, Dec. 2 (Xinhua) -- Since the end of the war in Afghanistan more than four years ago, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) hospital here has turned its attention from war victims to other victims of society, including children with physical disabilities, in the post-war nation.
Taj Mohammad, 39, looks older than his real age. He visits the ICRC hospital regularly to receive medical treatment for losing his left leg in the war two decades ago.
A resident of the northern region of Afghanistan, he recalled that he lost the leg in a mine blast. He was crossing the frontline along with his goats, but suddenly he heard a big explosion, and when he regained consciousness, he found himself in the hospital.
Taj Mohammad said that scores of war-wounded patients visited the hospital daily during wartime. Since the war ended, fewer patients, mostly victims of past wars, visit the hospital.
Established in 1988 to treat war-wounded patients, the hospital nowadays provides medical treatment to children suffering from physical disability as well as patients with psychological problems. It also started a physical rehabilitation program to make artificial limbs and provide rehabilitation services to war victims in the post-war country.
Another disabled man, Mohammad Haris, who lost his leg 18 years ago in a gunshot accident in Mir Bachakot district, north of Kabul, said that he visits ICRC hospital every one or two years, depending on the situation of his injured leg.
"Here, all the services provided by the hospital are free. We just pay the transport fee to come here to visit the doctors," Haris said, expressing satisfaction over his ICRC-made prosthetic leg.
The majority of the staff and employees of the hospital, including its physicians, are disabled persons, a doctor at the hospital, Abdul Alim Sakhiyar, said.
"I became disabled 28 years ago. I lost my left leg in a landmine explosion when I was six years old," Sakhiyar told Xinhua inside the hospital.
Working in the section of making artificial limbs and bread earner of a four-member family, Sakhiyar muttered joyfully that the war had already ended, and his patients are mostly victims of past wars and children with physical disabilities.
Run by 315 staff, with 90 percent of them disabled people, the ICRC hospital also provides medical treatment to patients suffering from psychological problems, a doctor in the hospital, Abdul Jalal Maqsoodi, said.
"In general, we have 315 staff working here in this center in Kabul, and we have seven more centers in provinces," Maqsoodi, a physiotherapist who joined the ICRC in 1992, told Xinhua. ■
A health worker checks a man with a prosthetic leg at a rehabilitation center run by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, Nov. 30, 2025. (Photo by Saifurahman Safi/Xinhua)
Staff members work on prosthetic legs at a rehabilitation center run by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, Nov. 30, 2025. (Photo by Saifurahman Safi/Xinhua)