Rashid is crying softly at the gate of the orphanage, his tears dropping onto his dusty brown salwar kameez outfit. Beside him, his grandmother tries to reassure him.

"Please don't cry, little one," she says, clutching a metal cane. A rocket attack by anti-Taliban forces on Kabul four years ago left her without a left leg and without the full use of her left hand. She is her family's sole breadwinner, earning about 60 cents a day from begging.

"I'll be back soon," she says to Rashid, "and I'll take you home to your mother. But right now, I can't. I have to go out and beg for our food."

Rashid is one of more than 600 children enrolled at the Alauddin orphanage, although he is not an orphan in the traditional sense. He has a mother, a grandmother, two brothers, two sisters, and an uncle who helps any way he can.

But like hundreds of other families in Kabul, and perhaps thousands around the country, Rashid's family can no longer afford to feed, clothe, or send their child to school. So three months ago, they brought Rashid to this orphanage in the ruined Western sector of Kabul, just to put a roof over his head and food in his stomach.

It's a cruel irony for Afghan families: At the very time when life should be improving, when 23 years of war have ended, when relief agencies are flooding in and refugees are returning by the hundreds of thousands, Afghanistan's traditional coping mechanisms are close to breaking down. Normally, Afghan families look after their own, shuttling children from poorer relatives to those who can afford better homes and food. But in today's Afghanistan, nearly every family is under tremendous economic distress and unable to provide for more than their own immediate family.

At Kabul's two main orphanages, Alauddin and Tahia Maskan, the number of children enrolled has increased almost 80 percent since last January, from 700 to over 1,200 children. Almost half of these come from families who have at least one parent, but who can't support their children.

"Nobody would willingly separate from their children," says Mohammad Ghaus Bashiri, deputy minister of labor and social affairs in the Afghan transitional government in Kabul. "They are forced to do this because of economic reasons."

Afghan officials say that international donor nations and private aid agencies have promised $3 million dollars to meet the growing needs of Afghan children, but little of this money has actually arrived.

"So far the biggest support we received was from the fire brigade of New York, the heroes of the World Trade Center," says Al-Haj Abdul Sameem, director of the Alauddin and Tahia Maskan orphanages. "They brought tons of toys for the children, and they are still using them. But unfortunately a lot of agencies which promised us aid haven't done anything." The orphanages rely on agencies such as UNICEF, Save the Children, and the London-based Children in Crisis for funding and donations.

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