UK information op kills Afghan girl

Times:

A young Afghan girl suffered fatal injuries after a box of public information leaflets, dropped from an RAF transport aircraft over Helmand province, landed on top of her.

The accident, which the Ministry of Defence said yesterday was “highly regrettable”, is being investigated.

The incident has taken some time to emerge. The leaflet drop occurred on June 23. The crew of an RAF C130 Hercules had been flying over rural parts of the province to try to reach local people with a leaflet campaign.

The boxes of leaflets are supposed to open up in mid-air, scattering the literature over a wide area. “But on this occasion one of the boxes failed to open, and the young girl was hit,” an official said. Defence sources said it was unfortunate that the injured girl was taken to a local hospital in Kandahar, neighbouring Helmand province, where she died after being given emergency treatment.

...

There is more.

There was obviously a failure of the box to open as designed. It does seem strange to me that she did not notice that an air drop was underway and avoid being hit on the head. There must be more to the story.

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