12 May 2011

Soraj Ghulam Habib


Visiting Australia at the moment is an Afghan teenager named Soraj Ghulam Habib.

Ten years ago, while playing with friends in his home city of Herat, he kicked a bright yellow box that was lying on the ground. As a result he lost his cousin and his legs, and four of his friends were injured.

The bright yellow object was an unexploded cluster bomb. There are millions of unexploded cluster munitions in countries like Afghanistan, Laos and Lebanon,a  constant hazard to people going about their daily activities long after the fighting has stopped.

Habib, 19, is visiting Australia as part of the campaign for a worldwide ban on cluster bombs, and to draw attention to the plight of the disabled in Afghanistan.

Read more about him and why his visit is timely in this item from the 9 May edition of The Age, accessible here.

For previous posts on the cluster munitions issue see Malcolm Fraser on our cluster munitions legislation, Laos and the Convention on Cluster Munitions and Strengthen our cluster munitions legislation

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