The cost of war: Kandahar, Afghanistan

Sayed Bibi is only 12 years old but she has traveled more than 70 dangerous kilometers by bus from the district of Marjah to bring her tiny nephew, Mohammed, to the therapeutic feeding unit at Mirwais Hospital in Kandahar city, capital of Kandahar Province in southern Afghanistan. "I brought him here because he is very thin," she said, cradling him in her arms. "He is the son of my brother - his mother is having another baby again soon, so she couldn't bring him." Other tiny children lie on the beds because most are too weak to stand, while their burka-clad mothers try to feed them. Mirwais, the regional referral facility, has the largest therapeutic feeding unit in southern Afghanistan and every year receives over three hundred children, usually between 6 months and 29 months old. The unit is supported by the UN Children's Fund and run by the International Committee of the Red Cross.