One day in 1985, from the hills of Kunar province in northeastern Afghanistan, came three women dressed in chador, their faces covered. The two sisters and their mother were victims of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and had come to the hospital ward of Nakamura Tetsu, a volunteer doctor from Fukuoka Japan and a specialist in treating Hansen’s Disease (leprosy). Removing their niqab, the younger sister “had a cavity where the bridge of her nose should have been” and the older sibling was completely bald. The mother had a burn on her foot which was necrotizing. The younger sister, Harima, pleaded for death. More…