United Nations agencies warned Monday humanitarian needs in Afghanistan have grown to unprecedented levels and more than half of the conflict-torn country’s population, a record 22.8 million people, will “face acute food insecurity” from November.

The Food and Agriculture Organization and World Food Progran said in joint study the combined impacts of drought, conflict, and economic decline have severely affected lives, livelihoods, and Afghans’ access to food.

“Among those at risk are 3.2 million children under-five who are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition by the end of the year,” the study said.

The latest U.N. findings come as the looming harsh winter threatens to cut off areas of Afghanistan where families desperately depend on humanitarian assistance to survive the freezing winter months.

 

“Afghanistan is now among the world’s worst humanitarian crises – if not the worst – and food security has all but collapsed,” lamented David Beasley, WFP executive director.

“This winter, millions of Afghans will be forced to choose between migration and starvation unless we can step up our life-saving assistance, and unless the economy can be resuscitated,” Beasley said. “We are on a countdown to catastrophe and if we don’t act now, we will have a total disaster on our hands.”

The Islamist Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August after overthrowing the Western-backed government, promising their interim government would restore stability.

But the hardline movement’s return to power has triggered financial sanctions on Kabul by the United States and other Western nations, blocking the Taliban’s access to around $10 billion dollars in Afghan assets parked largely with the U.S. Federal Reserve.

The sanctions have raised prospects of an economic meltdown that critics say will worsen the humanitarian crisis facing millions of people.

Washington and European countries have declined to directly engaged with the Taliban or give their interim government legitimacy, but they have vowed to make arrangements to sustain delivery of much-needed humanitarian aid to Afghans.

Neighboring countries, including China, Pakistan and Iran, have already dispatched relief assistance and promised to send more on a regular basis to help the Taliban government tackle the food crisis.

Thousands of poor families in western Afghanistan have reportedly already sold their flocks and fled in search of shelter and assistance in make-shift camps near major cities.

The U.N. says it will need to mobilize resources at unprecedented levels to meet the scale of needs, lamenting its humanitarian response plan remains only a third funded. Aid agencies warn this year’s drought conditions are likely to extend into 2022.

FAO and WFP say they have been alerting the world to huge funding shortfalls and the need for urgent action by the international community before it is too late.

“Hunger is rising and children are dying. We can’t feed people on promises – funding commitments must turn into hard cash, and the international community must come together to address this crisis, which is fast spinning out of control,” Beasley warned.

Save the Children, which champions the rights and interests of children worldwide, said Monday its analysis of the U.N data concludes almost 14 million children are expected to face crisis or emergency levels of food insecurity this winter “More than 5 million children are now just one step away from famine,” it added.

The relief agency pointed to this week’s media reports that said that eight children from the same family died of starvation in Kabul after losing both of their parents. The siblings, four boys and four girls, were aged between just 18 months and eight years old.

“It seems there is no end to the agony for Afghan children. After decades of war and suffering, they now face the worst hunger crisis in their country’s history,” said Chris Nyamandi, country director of Save the Children in Afghanistan.

“The situation is already desperate – we see young children in our clinics every day who are wasted from severe malnutrition because they have nothing but scraps of bread to eat,” Nyamandi said
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Pakistan and Afghanistan, the only two countries where polio still paralyzes children, marked World Polio Day (October 24) Sunday amid excitement and hopes that global eradication of the crippling disease is within reach. 

The neighboring countries constitute a bloc where the disease has been endemic; but each has detected just one case of wild polio so far this year compared to 53 in Afghanistan and 81 in Pakistan in October 2020. The number of cases so far in 2021 is the lowest in history, according to World Health Organization officials.

A polio vaccination campaign in Pakistan has faced challenges in particular over the past two years — due to vaccine hesitancy and the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to a five-month pause in polio immunization campaigns starting in March of 2020.

 

“We have reason to be optimistic,” said Aziz Memon of Rotary International, which coordinates a global polio eradication program.

 

Memon told VOA the declining trend of reported polio cases and negative environmental samples suggest “a positive outlook” for polio eradication in Pakistan and Afghanistan, stressing the need for capitalizing on what he described as an “unprecedented” opportunity to stop wild polio transmission. 

 

“We are currently in the high season for polio transmission in Afghanistan and Pakistan, so it’s never been more important to ensure that polio immunization and surveillance remain a top priority, particularly as the pandemic continues to threaten immunization programs around the world,” he said. 

 

Memon said restrictions on public movement to prevent COVID-19 from spreading was one of the key contributing factors leading to the recent decline in polio cases in Pakistan. 

 

“Inter-city and intra-city public transportation remained suspended across the country during the pandemic lockdowns, which restricted many nomadic families from traveling to other cities in search of job opportunities,” he said.

 

Memon said the resumption of mass polio vaccination campaigns and the natural immunity induced by the wild polio outbreaks of previous years have also contributed to the current reduction in cases. 

 

The Pakistani government reported earlier this month that its third vaccination campaign of the year in mid-September succeeded in the administering of polio drops to more than 40 million children across the country. 

 

Afghan house-to-house drive 

 

The United Nations last week announced that a house-to-house polio vaccination drive for all children under 5 in Afghanistan will restart on November 8 for the first time in more than three years, now that the conflict-torn country’s new Taliban government has granted approval. 

“Given that Pakistan and Afghanistan are a single epidemiological bloc, this represents a great opportunity for both countries to reach even more children with lifesaving polio vaccines,” said Memon, while welcoming the Taliban’s decision to lift the ban on house-to-house polio vaccination. 

Rotary’s Global Polio Eradication Initiative was founded in 1988. The program has since reduced infections by more than 99.9 percent worldwide and immunized nearly 3 billion children against polio, preventing more than 19.4 million cases of paralysis. But Rotary officials predict “hundreds of thousands of children could be paralyzed” if polio is not eradicated within 10 years. 

International eradicators warn outbreaks of circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses (cVDPVs) also pose a major barrier to achieving a polio-free world, calling for increased vigilance in swiftly addressing it.

 

The outbreak occurs if not enough children in any given community are vaccinated and the weakened live poliovirus contained in the oral polio vaccine starts to circulate, mutating to a form that can cause paralysis. 

 

“Multiple countries, including Pakistan and Afghanistan, are facing outbreaks of cVDPV type 2, and to address them, a new polio vaccine that carries less risk of changing to a harmful form that could cause paralysis in low-immunity settings has been developed,” Memon said.
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Women athletes in Afghanistan say the Taliban’s return to power has put an end to their dreams of playing sports at the national and international levels.

“It is over,” said 21-year-old Homaira Barakzai, the captain of Afghanistan’s national handball team, adding that “Everything has changed with the political change (Taliban’s return). Our only hope right now is to survive. Our future, as athletes, is unknown.”

After seizing power in August, the Taliban rolled back the hard-won women’s rights gained in the past two decades in Afghanistan. They did so by imposing strict restrictions on women, including a ban on women’s sports.

“It was very painful” to see that Afghanistan did not play in the Asian Women’s Handball Championship, said Barakzai. The games were held September 15-25 in Amman, Jordan.

Barakzai added that the Taliban’s takeover of the Afghan capital and the chaos at the Kabul airport after the collapse of the Afghan government prevented them from traveling to Amman for the games.

“It would have been a major achievement not only for us (the team) but for Afghan women and Afghanistan if we participated and won,” said Barakzai, who led the Afghan handball squad for the past four years.

Barakzai said now that the Taliban again control Afghanistan, she will not be able to play for her country. “Our dream came to an end as the Taliban returned to power.”

The Taliban, who took control of Afghanistan in August, barred women from work, secondary education and playing sports.

‘Very disappointing’ 

A high-ranking Taliban official told the Australian broadcaster SBS last month that Afghan women will not be allowed to play sports if they cannot “get an Islamic dress code.”

“It is obvious that they will get exposed and will not follow the dress code, and Islam does not allow that,” said Ahmadullah Wasiq, the deputy head of the Taliban cultural commission.

Mashhed Barez, a member of Afghanistan’s national handball team, told VOA that the Taliban ban on women’s sports is “very disappointing.”

She said the Taliban have not changed from what she heard about the group’s rule in the late 1990s.

“If someone thinks that the Taliban have changed, they are mistaken. The Taliban want people to live in poverty and misery,” Barez said.

Under Taliban rule in the late 1990s, women were forced to cover themselves from head to foot. They were not allowed to leave their houses without a male companion. The Taliban forbade women from playing sports.

That, however, changed after 2001 when a new Afghan government, supported by U.S.-led forces, adopted new policies encouraging girls to attend school and women to participate in the workforce. 

In the past 20 years, millions of girls enrolled in schools, and tens of thousands of women served in the public and private sectors. Afghan women athletes have participated at national and international tournaments, including the Olympic Games. 

But with the Taliban returning to power in Afghanistan, circumstances have changed.

Safety concerns 

New York-based rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused the Taliban of widespread human rights violations against Afghan women and girls.

In a statement last month, HRW’s associate director of the Women’s Rights Division, Heather Barr, said “women’s rights activists and high-profile women have been harassed and many are afraid and in hiding.”

“Because my parents were worried about my safety, I had to move to a relative’s house,” said Barakzai. “Now I cannot go out. I have to stay at home.”

She added that other members of the Afghan national handball team also live in fear.

Arzo Rahimi, chairperson of the Girls Football Federation in Afghanistan, told VOA that the international sports bodies should not forget about the country’s women athletes.

“They should not be left behind,” said Rahimi.

She added that athletes’ lives “are in danger under the Taliban,” and urged the international community to help with their evacuation to safety. 

Evacuation 

Last week, the world soccer body, FIFA, evacuated 100 football players and their families from Afghanistan with the help of the Qatari government. 

The International Olympic Committee and a number of other sports bodies and countries have helped in the evacuation of dozens of other women athletes.

London-based rights group Amnesty International said in a statement this week that though the international evacuation of at-risk Afghans from Afghanistan ended two months ago, “those left behind face formidable obstacles to seeking safety outside the country.”

Freshta Ahmadzai, a member of the Afghan national basketball team, told VOA that women athletes, being at high risk, are “forced” to leave the country because the Taliban do not give women their rights.

“We live like prisoners at home. We will be forced to leave the country,” she said. 

Ahmadzai called on the international community to put pressure on the Taliban to honor their pledges to respect women’s rights.

“If the Taliban allow women to work and play sports, I will not leave my country,” Ahmadzai said.
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Facebook in India has been selective in curbing hate speech, misinformation and inflammatory posts, particularly anti-Muslim content, according to leaked documents obtained by The Associated Press, even as its own employees cast doubt over the company’s motivations and interests.

From research as recent as March of this year to company memos that date back to 2019, the internal company documents on India highlight Facebook’s constant struggles in quashing abusive content on its platforms in the world’s biggest democracy and the company’s largest growth market. Communal and religious tensions in India have a history of boiling over on social media and stoking violence.

The files show that Facebook has been aware of the problems for years, raising questions over whether it has done enough to address these issues. Many critics and digital experts say it has failed to do so, especially in cases where members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, the BJP, are involved.

Modi has been credited for leveraging the platform to his party’s advantage during elections, and reporting from The Wall Street Journal last year cast doubt over whether Facebook was selectively enforcing its policies on hate speech to avoid blowback from the BJP. Both Modi and Facebook chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg have exuded bonhomie, memorialized by a 2015 image of the two hugging at Facebook headquarters.

According to the documents, Facebook saw India as one of the most “at risk countries” in the world and identified both Hindi and Bengali languages as priorities for “automation on violating hostile speech.” Yet, Facebook didn’t have enough local language moderators or content-flagging in place to stop misinformation that at times led to real-world violence.

In a statement to the AP, Facebook said it has “invested significantly in technology to find hate speech in various languages, including Hindi and Bengali” which has “reduced the amount of hate speech that people see by half” in 2021. 

“Hate speech against marginalized groups, including Muslims, is on the rise globally. So we are improving enforcement and are committed to updating our policies as hate speech evolves online,” a company spokesperson said. 

This AP story, along with others being published, is based on disclosures made to the Securities and Exchange Commission and provided to Congress in redacted form by former Facebook employee-turned-whistleblower Frances Haugen’s legal counsel. The redacted versions were obtained by a consortium of news organizations, including the AP.

In February 2019 and ahead of a general election when concerns about misinformation were running high, a Facebook employee wanted to understand what a new user in the country saw on their news feed if all they did was follow pages and groups solely recommended by the platform.

The employee created a test user account and kept it live for three weeks, during which an extraordinary event shook India — a militant attack in disputed Kashmir killed more than 40 Indian soldiers, bringing the country to near war with rival Pakistan.

In a report, titled “An Indian Test User’s Descent into a Sea of Polarizing, Nationalistic Messages,” the employee, whose name is redacted, said they were shocked by the content flooding the news feed, which “has become a near constant barrage of polarizing nationalist content, misinformation, and violence and gore.”

Seemingly benign and innocuous groups recommended by Facebook quickly morphed into something else altogether, where hate speech, unverified rumors and viral content ran rampant.

The recommended groups were inundated with fake news, anti-Pakistan rhetoric and Islamophobic content. Much of the content was extremely graphic.

“Following this test user’s News Feed, I’ve seen more images of dead people in the past three weeks than I’ve seen in my entire life total,” the researcher wrote.

The Facebook spokesperson said the test study “inspired deeper, more rigorous analysis” of its recommendation systems and “contributed to product changes to improve them.”

“Separately, our work on curbing hate speech continues and we have further strengthened our hate classifiers, to include four Indian languages,” the spokesperson said.

Other research files on misinformation in India highlight just how massive a problem it is for the platform.

In January 2019, a month before the test user experiment, another assessment raised similar alarms about misleading content. 

In a presentation circulated to employees, the findings concluded that Facebook’s misinformation tags weren’t clear enough for users, underscoring that it needed to do more to stem hate speech and fake news. Users told researchers that “clearly labeling information would make their lives easier.”

Alongside misinformation, the leaked documents reveal another problem dogging Facebook in India: anti-Muslim propaganda, especially by Hindu-hardline groups.

India is Facebook’s largest market with over 340 million users — nearly 400 million Indians also use the company’s messaging service WhatsApp. But both have been accused of being vehicles to spread hate speech and fake news against minorities.

In February 2020, these tensions came to life on Facebook when a politician from Modi’s party uploaded a video on the platform in which he called on his supporters to remove mostly Muslim protesters from a road in New Delhi if the police didn’t. Violent riots erupted within hours, killing 53 people. Most of them were Muslims. Only after thousands of views and shares did Facebook remove the video.

In April, misinformation targeting Muslims again went viral on its platform as the hashtag “Coronajihad” flooded news feeds, blaming the community for a surge in COVID-19 cases. The hashtag was popular on Facebook for days but was later removed by the company.

The misinformation triggered a wave of violence, business boycotts and hate speech toward Muslims.

Criticisms of Facebook’s handling of such content were amplified in August of last year when The Wall Street Journal published a series of stories detailing how the company had internally debated whether to classify a Hindu hard-line lawmaker close to Modi’s party as a “dangerous individual” — a classification that would ban him from the platform — after a series of anti-Muslim posts from his account.

The documents also show how the company’s South Asia policy head herself had shared what many felt were Islamophobic posts on her personal Facebook profile. 

Months later the India Facebook official quit the company. Facebook also removed the politician from the platform, but documents show many company employees felt the platform had mishandled the situation, accusing it of selective bias to avoid being in the crosshairs of the Indian government.

As recently as March this year, the company was internally debating whether it could control the “fear mongering, anti-Muslim narratives” pushed by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a far-right Hindu nationalist group that Modi is also a part of, on its platform.

In one document titled “Lotus Mahal,” the company noted that members with links to the BJP had created multiple Facebook accounts to amplify anti-Muslim content.

The research found that much of this content was “never flagged or actioned” since Facebook lacked “classifiers” and “moderators” in Hindi and Bengali languages. 

Facebook said it added hate speech classifiers in Hindi starting in 2018 and introduced Bengali in 2020.
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As recently as last week, the U.S. immigration service was using six officers to process about 14,000 humanitarian requests for Afghans seeking relocation to the United States following the Taliban takeover of the country in August.

That’s what the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service recently told congressional staff, Congressman Jim Langevin, a Democrat from Rhode Island, said Thursday during a House Homeland Security Committee meeting.

“I want to say that again: 14,000 humanitarian parole applications with just six officers,” Langevin said. “That is completely and utterly unacceptable, and I call on USCIS to address the shortcoming immediately.”

A spokesman for Langevin told VOA that the information about the USCIS backlog came during an October 12 agency briefing for congressional staff.

 

Emergency permission

Humanitarian parole is a special permission given to foreigners to enter the United States under emergency circumstances. While it does not automatically lead to permanent residence, “parolees” can apply for legal status once they’re in the U.S.

In a typical year, USCIS gets fewer than 2,000 humanitarian parole requests from around the world, according to a USCIS official, who spoke on background.

But since August, the agency has received a total of nearly 20,000 such requests for Afghan nationals outside the United States, the official said in a statement to VOA on Friday. That is up from 14,000 in mid-October.  

The vast majority of the applications have been filed by Afghan Americans on behalf of relatives back home who have no other options for relocating to the United States, according to community activists. A much larger number of Afghans with ties to the U.S. military, U.S. government and U.S. non-governmental organizations have applied for special immigrant visas or refugee status.  

 

Asked about Langevin’s criticism of the humanitarian parole backlog, the official said the agency is actively assigning additional staff to address the workload.

“USCIS issued an agencywide request for volunteers to help process applications for humanitarian and significant public benefit parole and the agency will have significantly more staff assigned to this workload in the coming weeks,” the official said.

The deluge of applications has nonetheless overwhelmed the immigration service.  

Afghan American lawyer Wogai Mohmand said the number of Afghan humanitarian parole requests could reach as high as 150,000 in a year.

“Their systems are not equipped to deal with that kind of volume,” Mohmand said during a recent webinar hosted by several advocacy organizations. “Frankly, they don’t have enough staff to look at all those applications.”

And assigning more officials to the humanitarian parole cases is not going to help anyone get out of Afghanistan, according to Sunil Varghese, policy director for International Refugee Assistance Project.

Varghese said that before parolees are admitted into the United States, they must have their fingerprints taken, identifies verified and travel documents issued by the U.S. embassy.

But the U.S. embassy in Kabul shut down at the end of August and moved to Doha, Qatar. As a result, once an Afghan applicant is deemed eligible for parole, he or she is instructed by USCIS to travel to a third country for vetting and biometrics.

 

With foreign visas hard to come by and regular commercial flights yet to resume, traveling to a third country for vetting is not an option for most Afghans, according to advocates.

If they do make it through the process “the Department of State issues a boarding letter for the applicant to take a commercial carrier, at their own expense, to the United States,” the official explained.

Even in the best of circumstances, the difficulty many Afghans face in reaching an overseas U.S. consulate has had undesirable consequences. Take the case of Fatima Khashee. As security deteriorated in July, the 61-year-old’s son, a U.S. permanent resident, filed a humanitarian parole request on her behalf.

In her case, USCIS acted fairly quickly, approving her application within 20 days on August 24, according to her son, who requested that he not be identified by name.

But by then the Taliban had overrun the country. The embassy, having relocated to the Kabul international airport, had transferred her case to Turkey. By the time she made it to Istanbul 30 days later, her parole authorization expired.

“It wasn’t my mother’s fault that her parole was expired,” the son said in a message to VOA. “She paid triple of regular price to get [the] first flights [that] became available out of Afghanistan. She tried every possible channel to get out sooner, but all land borders and airlines were closed.”

One month later, Khashee remains stuck at an Istanbul hotel, waiting for what her son describes as a long-overdue, updated parole reauthorization.

“That is unbelievable and very disappointing,” he said of the six officers adjudicating 14,000 applications.

It costs $575 to apply for humanitarian parole, a figure that adds up to several thousand dollars for a family of six and that some members of Congress want to see waived.  Despite the cost and uncertainty over their approval, however, many Afghan Americans continue to file applications for their loved ones. 

“First, they don’t have any other options available,” Khashee’s son said. “Secondly, they are all still hopeful that the USCIS approve their cases considering the situation in Afghanistan. Most of them are not aware how hard it is to be approved for humanitarian parole.”

The USCIS official did not respond to questions about whether the agency has approved any Afghan humanitarian parole requests and how long it would take the agency to clear the backlog.
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Colombia’s armed forces have captured Dairo Antonio Usuga, known as Otoniel, in the biggest blow to drug trafficking in the Andean country since the death of Pablo Escobar, President Ivan Duque said on Saturday. 

Otoniel, 50, was captured during operation Osiris in a rural area of Colombia’s Uraba region, located in Antioquia province. He is accused of sending dozens of shipments of cocaine to the United States, and Duque said he is also accused of killing police officers, recruiting minors, and sexually abusing children among other crimes. 

Colombia had offered a reward of up to 3 billion pesos (about $800,000) for information concerning Otoniel’s whereabouts, while the U.S. government had put up a reward of $5 million for help locating him. 

“This is the biggest blow against drug trafficking in our country this century,” Duque said during a broadcast video message. “This blow is only comparable to the fall of Pablo Escobar in the 1990s.” 

One police officer died during the operation, Duque said. 

Otoniel rose to become the leader of the drug trafficking group the Clan del Golfo, or Gulf Clan, following stints as a left-wing guerrilla and later as a paramilitary. 

Clan del Golfo has around 1,200 armed men — the majority former members of far-right paramilitary groups — and is present in 10 of Colombia’s 32 provinces. 

As well as drug trafficking, Clan del Golfo is involved with illegal mining, authorities say. The government also accuses the group of threatening and killing community leaders across the country. 

Though Duque said Otoniel’s capture represented the end of the Clan del Golfo, Colombia Risk Analysis director Sergio Guzman said a new leader would surely be waiting to take over. 

“It’s a big deal because he’s the biggest drug kingpin in Colombia,” Guzman said, adding that the capture would not change the fundamentals of drug trafficking. “Otoniel is bound to be replaced.” 

Colombian authorities launched Operation Agamemnon in 2016 as they worked to close in on Otoniel, killing and capturing dozens of his lieutenants, going after his finances and forcing him to be constantly on the move, according to the police. 

In 2017 a video in which Otoniel announced his intent to submit to justice was published, but the plan never came to fruition. 

In March, Colombian police and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency captured (( https://www.reuters.com/article/us-colombia-drugs-idUSKBN2BA2EL )) Otoniel’s sister, Nini Johana Usuga, who was extradited to the United States to face charges connected to drug trafficking and money laundering. 

Operation Osiris involved more than 500 members of Colombia’s special forces and 22 helicopters, according to Defense Minister Diego Molano. 
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Uzbekistan’s president, who has relaxed many of the policies of his dictatorial predecessor but has made little effort at political reform, is expected to win a new term by a landslide against weak competition in an election Sunday. 

Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who took office in 2016 upon the death of Islam Karimov, faces four relatively low-visibility candidates who didn’t even show up for televised debates, instead sending proxies who failed to engage in substantial discussions. Independent candidates weren’t allowed.

“The other candidates talk about abstract things like strengthening social security, but they don’t provide any details. They don’t have a real program and they don’t have to because they know who will win,” said political analyst Akhmed Rahmonov.

The only Mirziyoyev challenger who got significant notice in the campaign was Alisher Qodirov, with his proposal that Uzbeks working outside the country should pay taxes in Uzbekistan, a widely unpopular idea for the large share of the population that depends on remittances from family members abroad. 

Mirziyoyev openly disagreed with the proposal and some observers suggested that Qodirov, whose party is in coalition with Mirziyoyev’s in the parliament, made it in order to channel votes to the incumbent.

Under Mirziyoyev, freedom of speech has expanded compared with the suppression of the Karimov era, and some independent news media and bloggers have appeared. He also relaxed the tight controls on Islam in the predominantly Muslim country that Karimov imposed to counter dissident views. 

He also lifted controls on hard currency, encouraging investment from abroad, and he moved to patch up foreign relations that soured under Karimov. 

“Mirziyoyev improved relations with world players such as Russia, China and the West, while also resolving conflicts with neighbors including establishing peaceful interaction with Afghanistan,” said Andrey Kazantsev of the Moscow State Institute of Foreign Relations.

Uzbekistan and Afghanistan share a 144-kilometer (89-mile) border, and Uzbekistan has consistently worried that conflict could spill over. The ex-Soviet republic’s foreign minister became the first foreign official to visit Afghanistan after the Taliban took control of the country in August. 

 
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Pakistan stopped short Saturday of refuting media claims it is working out a deal for the use of its airspace by the United States to launch counterterrorism military missions in neighboring Afghanistan. 

The statement comes a day after CNN reported that Washington “is nearing a formalized agreement” with Islamabad for use of Pakistan’s airspace to conduct military and intelligence operations against terrorists operating on Afghan soil. 

Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Asim Iftikhar Ahmad said in a statement “that no such understanding was in place.”

“Pakistan and the U.S. have longstanding cooperation on regional security and counterterrorism, and the two sides remain engaged in regular consultations,” Ahmad added. He did not elaborate further.  

The negotiations were continuing and the terms of the agreement could still change before it is finalized, the American news network said, citing three sources familiar with the details of a classified briefing U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration gave Friday to members of Congress.

Washington has been trying to work out an arrangement to enable the American military to conduct timely counterterrorism operations against the regional branch of the Islamic State group, known as Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-Khorasan), and militants linked to other terrorist groups in Afghanistan since U.S. and NATO troops withdrew from the country in August after two decades there.

Islamabad has expressed a desire to sign a memorandum of understanding in exchange for assistance with its own counterterrorism efforts and help in managing the relationship with Pakistan’s archival India, according to the CNN report. 

Pakistan’s air and land routes played a crucial role in facilitating the U.S.-led punitive international invasion of Afghanistan 20 years ago to oust the then-Taliban government for harboring al-Qaida planners of the September 2001 terrorist attacks on America.

Pakistani and U.S. officials acknowledge the American military still uses Pakistan’s airspace for intelligence-gathering missions in Afghanistan, but they say a formal agreement needs to be negotiated for using the facility in the future.

The foreign military withdrawal from Afghanistan enabled the Taliban insurgency to oust the Western-backed government in Kabul in August and take control of the country.

But IS-Khorasan has since intensified attacks across the war-torn country, killing and injuring hundreds of Afghans, mostly civilians. The terrorist outfit carried out a suicide bombing outside the Kabul airport, where thousands of people had gathered to try to catch an emergency evacuation flight during the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from the country. 

The blast killed nearly 200 people, including 13 U.S. service members. IS-Khorasan also has claimed responsibly for two mosque bombings earlier this month that killed and injured hundreds of worshippers, mostly members of the Afghan minority Shiite community.
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Afghan women leaders are calling on United Nations member countries to pressure the Taliban to keep their promises and allow women to work and girls to study. As VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports, girls are still banned from secondary school under Taliban rule in Afghanistan.
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Staff members of RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service, known in Uzbekistan as Ozodlik, have received numerous online death threats in recent days as Central Asia’s most populous nation gets ready for presidential elections next week.

 

On a single day, October 16, dozens of posts threatening RFE/RL’s journalists appeared in the Uzbek Service’s Telegram channel in just 30 minutes.

 

The vulgar posts carried threats of beheadings and sexual assaults and were accompanied by images with pornographic elements and an identical caption reading: “Ozodlik’s real goal is to marshal a mutiny in Uzbekistan, to disrupt peace, to discredit our president.” The posts also hurled insults at RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service staff members and their mothers.

Most of the posts came from anonymous accounts. However, the Uzbek Service’s Telegram communication managers found out that at least two threats came from accounts associated with users promoting the Uzbek government’s policies related to armed forces.

RFE/RL President Jamie Fly called the threats “disgusting” and urged the Tashkent government to immediately end its intimidating tactics against independent media.

Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev has positioned himself as a democratic reformer after he took over the country of some 34 million people following the death of his authoritarian predecessor, Islam Karimov, in September 2016.

However, in the run-up to presidential elections scheduled for October 24, arrests and attacks on bloggers and journalists have been on rise across the country.

Also, the website of RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service was blocked several times and RFE/RL’s requests for official accreditation of its correspondents in the country have remained unanswered.

Uzbekistan ranked 157th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ 2021 World Press Freedom Index.
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With winter closing in across much of Afghanistan, American veterans organizations and other private groups are pressing the State Department for funding to continue evacuating thousands of vulnerable Afghans who didn’t make it out of the country during the massive U.S. airlift in August. 

The call for government funding for the increasingly expensive humanitarian operation came during recent meetings between the private organizers and State Department officials. While the State Department, which is leading the Afghan relocation effort, hasn’t said whether it would fund charter flights organized by the groups, organizers say such assistance could help accelerate what has been a sluggish endeavor so far. 

“There is more of an effort by State to try to take the driver’s seat in this evacuation, which is great,” said Sara Yim, co-founder of Transit Initiatives, one of several volunteer organizations supporting Afghans awaiting evacuation. 

“If the U.S. government cannot expedite evacuations on their own, the fact that they’re willing to partner with private organizations to do that is, in my mind, still a win, because private organizations are the ones providing a lifeline and are connected to Afghans on the ground,” Yim said in an interview with VOA. 

Since leading the evacuation of nearly 124,000 civilians from Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover in August, the Biden administration has faced mounting criticism over leaving behind thousands of Afghans and up to 1,000 Americans. 

State Department spokesman Ned Price did not answer directly when asked at a press briefing last week whether the United States is providing financial assistance for private charter flights, instead mentioning “charter operations” the U.S. has worked on with Qatar and Pakistan. 

In September, the U.S. paid for seats for hundreds of American citizens, green card holders and others on several Qatar Airways and Pakistan International Airlines flights to Doha and Islamabad for relocation in the United States. 

Increasingly, however, the State Department views private charter flights as a valuable alternative until commercial flights resume. 

“Our goal is to make [charter flights] even more routine, to lend a degree of automaticity to these operations,” Price said. 

Costly endeavor 

Chartering evacuation flights is expensive. A private charter from the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif to a military base in the Middle East — a common destination for Afghan evacuees — can cost upward of $750,000, according to organizers. 

“It’s not easy to raise a half million at the drop of a hat,” said Minda Aguhob of the Female & Free Speech Airlift, a volunteer coalition evacuating people from Afghanistan. “That’s what you need just to get the flight off the ground, and another quarter million to house people so you’re not sending them to starve.” 

As a result, cash-strapped organizations have often pooled resources to jointly fund flights or put evacuees on flights paid for by other groups. 

“If another organization has a group they’re trying to get out, and they have been funded to get this group out but they have extra seats on this plane, they don’t want to let those seats go unfilled,” said Phil Caruso, chairman of the nonprofit No One Left Behind. “So, they’ll reach out to other organizations to say, ‘Hey, do you have anybody who’s ready and willing to travel, who has the required documents, and so on? And can you get them here?’ ” 

Getting a charter flight off the ground requires delicate international diplomacy, said Alex Plitsas, a spokesman for Human First Coalition. 

“To get all those folks in, you have to get a flight that’s willing to land in Afghanistan. And from there, you have to have a third country that’s willing to receive them — and that depends on their paperwork status,” Plitsas said. 

Human First Coalition said it helped evacuate 6,000 people during the U.S.-led airlift. The group has since evacuated several hundred Afghans and is currently housing several thousand others waiting to leave Afghanistan. 

“Our operational costs are into the millions of dollars every month, so we definitely are in need of donors and funding support, just to be candid with you,” Plitsas said, noting that their operation is privately funded. 

Chad Robichaux, co-founder of Save Our Allies, a veterans and military support coalition, said government funding for private charter flights could make a big difference. 

“The right thing would be to help these people get out, for the government to step in and help fund getting these people out,” Robichaux said in an interview with VOA. 

With funding from conservative radio host Glenn Beck’s Nazarene Fund, Save Our Allies has helped organize nearly 20 charter flights to evacuate more than 2,000 people in recent weeks, most of them military interpreters, vulnerable women and children, and Christians facing persecution. 

The group has a priority list of about 3,000 vulnerable Afghans it wants to evacuate. But with media interest in Afghanistan diminishing, Robichaux said donor fatigue remains a concern. 

“As soon as the news cycle stops talking about it, it’s going to be a lot harder for us to raise the funds to do what needs to be done,” he said. 

It’s not clear how many at-risk Afghans remain stranded. Some estimates put the number at upward of 100,000. Plitsas said his organization is determined to continue its mission until one of two things happens: “Either we run out of funding and are unable to operate, or we get everybody out who we need to get out on these flights.”
…

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More than 50,000 Afghan refugees who are now housed at U.S. military bases will be resettled throughout the United States in coming months. The largest number will be heading for California and Texas. As Mike O’Sullivan reports, the Afghan American community and local officials are getting ready.

Camera: Genia Dulot, Mike O’Sullivan
…

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TRANSCRIPT 

 

The Inside Story: Afghanistan’s Addiction Crisis 

Episode 10 – October 21, 2021 

 

Show Open: 

 

Voice of: KATHERINE GYPSON, VOA Congressional Correspondent: 

 

Afghanistan’s poppy fields provides most of the world’s opium …  

Creating a crisis of addiction in the country.  

 

 

Mark Colhoun, Former UNODC Representative in Afghanistan: 

 

So, these are all increasing the threat to the population exponentially. 

 

 

KATHERINE GYPSON: 

The old … the young.  

The men … and the women …  

Drugs’ grip on Afghanistan’s society and economy —  

On The Inside Story: Afghanistan’s Addiction Crisis.  

 

 

The Inside Story:  

KATHERINE GYPSON: 

 

Hi. I’m Katherine Gypson, VOA’s Congressional Correspondent.  

 

While members of Congress and others debate the tactics of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the strategies of 20 years of war, there is one issue that has constantly plagued that country: Drugs. Narcotics. Specifically, opium.  

 

According to the U.N., Afghanistan produces 80 percent of the world’s opium.  

While the rest of the world tries to deal with the trafficking of the drug, millions of people are addicted inside Afghanistan.  

 

Before the U.S. withdrawal, VOA’s Afghan Service traveled through the country to document the extent of Afghanistan’s Addiction Crisis.  

 

 

Our grim trip begins in the capital, Kabul.  

 

Voice of narrator (Annie Ball):  

 

In Afghanistan, this is where, and how, it sometimes ends. A drug addict’s life.  

 

Health workers came to round-up the addicts and take them to addiction treatment centers. But today they encounter the lifeless bodies of three addicts. 

 

Here, at Kabul’s “Pul-e-Sokhta” bridge, the health workers face the grim, and heavy chore of removing the bodies, hauling them up to the street and away for burial. If no family can be located, they will be laid in an unmarked grave, with no one to mourn their loss. It is the mark of shame to be buried alone in Afghanistan.  

 

For the workers and government officials, it reminds them they cannot help everyone. 

Dr. Aref Wafa was working with addicts. 

 

 

 

Dr. Aref Wafa, Department of Drug Demand Reduction: 

 

Especially when we come here in the winter, our goal is to save their lives. They may increase the dose due to cold or chills. When they overdose, they do not feel it, therefore, this causes their death. 

 

 

 

Narrator:  

 

Doctors say, these addicts are consuming heroin, morphine, opium and increasingly, crystal meth. The cause of death is usually a drug overdose. They are taken to a Kabul cemetery for burial. How many bodies are buried there? No one knows. Officials don’t track the numbers.  

 

Gholam Yahya’s brother lost his life to addiction under the bridge. Yahya, an addict like his brother, still lives under this bridge. Now, he describes the sadness—and shame—and how addicts’ deaths are treated by religious leaders.  

 

 

 

Gholam Yahya, Drug Addict: 

 

They said those who use drugs, commit suicide. Since they commit suicide, their funeral prayers are forbidden. They cannot be washed. His mother did not bring her child to this world to end up under Pull-e-Sokhta bridge. He did not wish this for himself., but I could not bury him in any cemetery. 

 

 

 

Narrator:  

 

In Kabul’s ‘Pul-e-Sokhta area, this is not just the story of Gholam Yahya’s life.  

 

Throughout Afghanistan, it is known as a drug addiction center. The bridge in western Kabul has become a major hub for drug users for the past two decades. An iconic symbol of drug abuse in a nation rife with addiction. 

 

The addicts don’t come just from Kabul, but many from the provinces, too.  Hundreds of them share this grimy space, spending their days and nights getting high amidst the waste and debris.  Most of them have been evicted by their families and have no shelter. 

 

They live in squalor, surrounded by filth, black walls, and dirty water. 

 

Over the years there have been several unsuccessful attempts to close the area. But it remains a popular gathering place for addicts. 

 

Nazo is one of many looking for loved ones. Her husband and brother are addicted to drugs. Nazo’s husband uses opium and is remarried. He left her with the responsibility of taking care of their six boys. In Afghanistan, single mothers with no men in the house face a particularly difficult life, especially when the single mother is the only breadwinner. This is why Nazo hopes to find her brother, who is a heroin addict. 

 

 

 

Nazo, Sister of a Drug Addict: 

 

It has been five months since I went to Kart-e-now, Arzan Qemat, Jada, and Cinema-e-Pamir to Shama-li so that anyone could tell me his whereabouts. I don’t know the area. I went to ask. I got home about ten o’clock at night. I am a woman. I cannot bear this grief, if God forbid. someone touches me or someone talks dirty behind my back. 

 

 

 

 

Narrator:  

 

In addition to her six children, Nazo also has been taking care of her mother and her brother’s wife. She washes dishes and cleans people’s laundry, making about $2.60 a day.  

 

 

 

 

Nazo, Sister of a Drug Addict: 

 

I suffered for him so much. The other day, I told my mother. ‘Mother!’ She said, ‘Yes.’ I said ‘it’s a pain, we can get over it. I will find a poison tablet and we will end everything together. 

 

 

 

KATHERINE GYPSON: 

 

Stories like Nazo’s are becoming more commonplace because of the drug trade’s grip on Afghanistan’s economy.   

 

2017 was the peak, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.  

 

Nearly 10-thousand tons of opium brought in one-point-four billion dollars — seven percent of Afghanistan’s GDP.  

 

And now the opium produced from the poppy plant has a rival that also grows wild in Afghanistan.  

 

 

 

Narrator:  

 

As a country, Afghanistan deals with insecurity, endless wars, corruption, poverty, a weak economy, high unemployment, and other challenges. But it also faces the problem of home-grown addiction and drug use. Some describe drug addiction in this country as a hidden tsunami; a large wave ready to crush what is in its wake. 

 

Despite billions of dollars in international aid, government projects and efforts, Afghanistan remains the world’s top cultivator of poppy—the plant used to make opium and heroin. 

 

The country is the world’s largest narcotics producer.  A joint survey by the Afghan government and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC, shows they are losing the war to eradicate the crop.  

 

It says in 2020, poppy cultivation was up 37% in Afghanistan.  

 

The report found that last year poppy was cultivated on nearly a quarter of a million hectares of land in 22 of the 34 provinces. 

 

Most of the opium is smuggled abroad, but what remains is a problem at home. 

 

 

 

Mark Colhoun, Former UNODC Representative in Afghanistan: 

 

We are seeing high level of opioid use in the country. We are seeing high level of cannabis use in the country and an emerging threat that we have been noticing for the last number of years is definitely methamphetamine and other amphetamine type stimulants in the country. So, these are all increasing the threats to the population exponentially, so we have drug production and then rising drug use in the country which is a severe threat to the people of the country. 

 

 

 

Narrator:  

 

Drug production and addiction go hand-in-hand, and both are on the rise.  

 

User statistics are hard to come by. The most recent numbers are from a 2015 survey. It was conducted by INL, the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs and the Afghan government. It found that 2.5 to 3.5 million Afghans are directly or indirectly addicted to drugs. At that time, one in three families tested positive for drugs. And the rural areas were three times worse than in the cities. 

 

 

 

Dr. Ahmad Jawad Osmani, Former Afghanistan Minister of Public Health: 

 

Unfortunately, drug addiction is not diminishing. It is increasing. And that’s why, we think that the number that was estimated in the past has increased even more.  

 

 

 

Narrator:  

 

Meanwhile, a recent report shows crystal methamphetamine – also called crystal or meth — is a growing problem in Afghanistan. Last November, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) reported that the country is becoming a significant global producer of meth. 

 

One reason is drug traffickers discovered that the ephedra plant, which commonly grows wild in parts of Afghanistan, can be used to make meth. The report focused on the production of meth in Bakwa district. It called the preliminary findings “worrying,” adding there is potential for meth to rival the country’s production of opiates. 

 

  

 

KATHERINE GYPSON: 

Concern over the rapid increase in meth production is its relative low cost to make.   

And for many of Afghanistan’s addicts, low cost is what they are looking for.  

And it is not limited to the cities.  

 

VOA’s Afghan Service went about 180 kilometers west of Kabul — to Bamyan province — for a ground-level view of addiction’s reach into rural villages.  

 

 

 

Narrator:  

 

Bamyan is known for its beautiful landscapes. It is where, nearly 20 years ago (March 2001) the Taliban destroyed two ancient statues of Buddha, which had been the largest in the world.  

 

Here, people in the cities and villages suffer from drug addiction. 

 

Local officials say there are about 50,000 addicts, and people affected by addiction. 

 

Head west, into more rural areas, and you find drugs even more prevalent than in central Bamyan province.  

 

The Waras district is where most of the villagers use drugs.  

 

The long drive to get there winds through scenic landscapes and rutted roads.  

 

Waras district is surrounded by green hills and valleys.  

 

People in this remote area live in poverty. They lack the benefits of modern society, like good schools, clinics or hospitals, and technology.  

 

The sun shines brightly this morning in Bazobala village. Here, everyone, young and old, including the men, women and children are drug addicts.  

 

Eighty families live in Bazobala.   

 

Most people here use drugs together, in groups, and out in the open. The lives of the villagers revolve around smoking drugs. When they have it, they use it. 

 

When asked why, they mention many reasons. Like this 18-year-old man: 

 

 

 

Drug Addict, Bazobala Shuqol village: 

 

The reason I became addicted to drugs was unemployment and poverty. I went to Iran, far away from home. I was unemployed and the situation was bad, so I got addicted to drugs. So, when I return here, I thought that the situation will be better. The situation is bad here as well. 

 

 

 

Ali Yawar, Bazobala Shuqol village: 

  

I have been using drugs for almost fifteen years. First, I used heroin, now I’m using in crystal. 

 

 

 

 

Narrator:  

 

It affects the children too. Parents not only use themselves, but also give drugs to their children. In addition to heroin, opium and crystal meth, the addicts of Bazobala are also familiar with other drug options, like tramadol tablets. It is a cheap alternative to heroin and opium. 

 

 

 

Drug Addict, Bazobala Shugol village: 

 

Those whose consumption is high, like myself, my spending is also high. I use may be one or one and half packet. A packet is 25 (32 cents) to 50 Afghanis. You can’t even purchase this tramadol 500 for 100 Afghanis. 

 

 

 

Narrator:  

 

In Pezhandur village, women are also drug addicts. 

 

In many families in the area, they use drugs with their husbands and children 

 

This is Fatima. She has been addicted to drugs for 30 years. Fatima, her husband and her sons use drugs together.  

 

 

 

Fatima, Pashandur Village: 

 

I have asthma. I’m sick as well. I’m 65 years old. I go to work in the desert and mountains until late. I’m weak and my husband is also sick. 

 

 

 

Narrator:  

 

Villagers here work in farming and raising animals. Young people go to the mountains to collect grass for the animals, and the children are shepherds. 

 

The idyllic life of these villages is disrupted by narcotics, brought in from neighboring provinces. Residents say they have repeatedly informed security agencies about the smugglers, but no action is taken. 

 

The villagers want the government’s attention. They want help, and they want an addiction treatment center. 

 

There is only one 20-bed clinic in Waras, which clearly lacks the ability to treat all the addicts in an area of tens of thousands of people. Local officials want more. 

 

 

 

Qasim Ali, Chairman, People’s Council of the Peshandur & Bazobala Area: 

 

Everyone is addicted to drugs. These people are all unfortunate. The reason is unemployment and poverty. The government does not care about these people. I request from the government, the international community, and human rights to build a hospital in the Shiwqol area. The hospital should be 100 beds or so so these people can be treated. 

 

 

 

KATHERINE GYPSON 

Addiction treatment is undergoing a change now that the Taliban are running Afghanistan.  

 

Police have been recently rounding up addicts in Kabul, giving them a choice to either sober up or face beatings.  

  

They are stripped, bathed and shaved before going into a 45-day treatment program.  

 

But as one Taliban officer put it: “It’s not important if some of them will die. Others will be cured. After they are cured, they can be free.” 

 

The addicts rounded up in these raids have been men. But women fall victim to drug addiction, too. Before the Taliban took over, our VOA Afghan Service team went to Balk province in northern Afghanistan and discovered the disturbing way women addicts can be preyed upon.  

 

 

 

Narrator:  

 

The yellow morning sun shines on Mazar-e-Sharif, Balkh’s capital.  

 

This is one of the most populous provinces in northern Afghanistan, and Mazar-e-Sharif is the fourth largest city in the country. 

 

The Blue Mosque, dating back to the 15th century, has made this city famous.  

 

Mazar-e-Sharif hosts internally displaced people, IDPs, from nearby provinces. Security in the city brings people to come live here.  

 

The city suffers from a large presence of drug addicts. Local officials say more than 300,000 people in Balkh province, including women and children, use drugs. 

 

Easy access to drugs has led to more addicts. In the city of Mazar-e-Sharif, some women addicts are homeless, and some seek shelter in the cemetery at night.  

 

This area is called Dasht-e-Shoor. These are the tents of internally displaced families. 

 

This woman lives in the camp. She is an addict with a difficult story. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zohra, Homeless Drug Addict: 

 

I was 13 years old, and my father was not there when my brother and mother married me. Now I am 31 years old, and I am lost. My mother-in-law was beating me. My father-in-law was beating me. I was smoking opium. I used to drink opium and that’s why they were beating me and telling me not to eat it. My husband left me and said “I don’t want a wife like you. You are free.” I have my two children with me. My husband hates me and doesn’t allow me to go home. I live in a tent. I have relatives, but they don’t care about me. 

 

 

 

Narrator:  

 

But Zohra says she is not addicted to drugs by her own free will. She says her family got her hooked. They used drugs in groups, she explains, to lessen the intense pain caused by their work as carpet weavers. 

 

Zohra uses marijuana and opium. She has tried to quit several times but concerns about being homeless led her to relapse. 

. 

She walks the streets of Mazar-e-Sharif at night, begging and collecting usable garbage. This is NOT normal practice for women—because generally, it is not safe here for a woman to be out alone at night.  

 

VOA went with her one night to see how she fares alone. 

 

Zohra told us about how she pays for her habit. And in this harrowing story, she shared about someone giving her a ride, and the offer he made her: 

 

 

 

Zohra/Homeless Drug Addict: 

 

I weave carpets to earn money. I use opium, that’s not cheap. I was on my way to collect waste when a car stopped, and the driver told me to get in the car. And he told me I will take you home and help you. Then I got in the car. The driver showed me the suicide jacket and asked me, ‘Do you want to do this? I will give you money.’ I said ‘No, I will not do it.’ And I jumped out of the car. 

 

 

 

 

 

KATHERINE GYPSON: 

 

The United States spent more than eight-and-a-half billion dollars between 2002 and 2017 battling Afghanistan’s drug trade — That, according to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.  

 

In May, the Special Inspector General said the Taliban gets an estimated 60 percent of its income from illegal drugs —   About 400-million dollars between 2018 and 2019 according to the U.N.  

 

And in Afghanistan’s easternmost province, VOA’s Afghan service found out that addiction knows no age — old or young.  

 

 

 

Narrator:  

 

Here in Badakhshan province, there are an estimated 25 to 30,000 addicts. Like elsewhere, addiction tends to run in families. 

 

Jan Begum’s family is one of them. They live in the city of Faizabad. Her two sons and husband are addicted. They use crystal meth and heroin. 

 

 

 

Jan Begum, Drug Addict: 

 

We don’t have anything. They are both unemployed, this one is an addict, that one is an addict, too. My older son is not here. It has been three years since he is missing. I don’t know if he is alive or dead. There are four of us, and all four of us are addicts. Yes, we sold everything. We sold bedsheets and everything that we had. And with the money, we bought drugs and used it. 

 

 

 

Narrator: 

 

Jan Begum’s family used to live in a house in Faizabad.  When the homeowner found out the family was using drugs, he kicked them out. 

 

Now, they beg, take in laundry, and spend most of their income on drugs. Some of them have been treated several times for their addiction, but relapsed.  

 

Samiullah is 18 years old. He uses drugs together with his mother, father, and brother. 

 

Samiullah, Drug Addict: 

 

I have been taking drugs from a young age. I take it with my parents. I go out to find then I take it. I wish the government would come and treat us and I would work as a server in a hotel. 

 

 

 

Narrator:  

 

Afghanistan remains the world’s largest opium producer.  

 

Here in Nangahar province, children and teenagers work in the poppy fields collecting the gum with the elders in their family. They’re helping with opium production. 

 

Mustafa is one of the teenagers working the poppy fields. Now,16 years old, Mustafa says he has been moving towards addiction for a long time, just because he works with poppies and opium. 

 

 

 

Mustafa, 16-Year Old Poppy Field Worker: 

 

Well, it’s narcotics, it gets you high. When we collect, we sniff, and it made us dizzy. Made us high, then we would sit down or go home with an excuse to relax and then go out. It had a bad effect. I had a headache when I went to school. I got permission to leave. It had a very bad effect because our heads were spinning, we were high. Drugs must cause this condition to our body. 

 

 

 

Narrator:  

 

This is some of Mustafa’s poppy harvest for the year. A few kilograms of opium have been harvested from the fields. He says that after collecting, he sold the opium and kept two more kilograms to sell later.  

 

When the poppy season is over, he works in fields tending other crops like onions. 

 

Mustafa says he has seen many people, including women, become addicted to drugs after working in poppy fields. He does not want to become an addict himself. 

 

 

 

 

Mustafa, Poppy Field Worker: 

 

If no narcotics were planted here, maybe no one would be addicted to drugs. Poppy made many people addicted to heroin. We want the government to stop the poppy cultivation. They should cultivate for us good, good fruit trees. 

 

 

 

Narrator:  

 

Less poppy production would mean less drug addiction, and fewer drug addicts ending up here, in this cemetery, in an unmarked grave. A sad and shameful death, in a nation where nothing is more important than family, honor and tradition. 

 

 

 

KATHERINE GYPSON: 

 

These are just a few of the stories of addiction in Afghanistan – you can watch the entire documentary at VOANews.com. That’s all we have for now.   

 

Connect with us at VOANews on Instagram and Facebook.  

And you can follow me on Twitter at Kgyp. That’s @ K G Y P.  

See you next week for The Inside Story.  

 

 

### 

  

  

 

 

 
…

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The U.N. Development Program is launching a plan to help millions of Afghans who have lost their livelihoods in the midst of the recent political turmoil regain the ability to earn a living and feed their families.

The speed and degree to which Afghanistan’s economy has imploded since the Taliban gained control of the country in mid-August is breathtaking. Most affected are the country’s 38 million people, many of whom are unable to support themselves.

The latest assessment by the U.N. Development Program (UNDP) forecasts 97 percent of households in Afghanistan could sink below the poverty line by early to mid-2022 if the country’s political and economic crisis is not urgently addressed.

UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner acknowledges the country is in desperate need of humanitarian assistance. At the same time, however, he said measures must be taken to keep the local economies going. He said international aid alone cannot keep 38 million Afghans alive.

“We have to step in. We have to stabilize the people’s economy and in addition to saving lives in the immediate.We also have to save livelihoods because otherwise, we will confront, indeed, a scenario through this winter and into next year where millions and millions of Afghans are simply unable to stay on the land, in their homes, in their villages, and survive,” said Steiner.

The UNDP has established a Special Trust Fund for Afghanistan to protect the hard-won development gains the country has achieved over the past 20 years. Countries can channel funding for specific development and livelihood projects through this program.

Kanni Wignaraja is assistant secretary general and director of the Regional Bureau for Asia Pacific. She said the money will go directly to community groups and community members.

“It will provide a cash for work to support small public works efforts.As Achim said, it will provide temporary, basic income for the most vulnerable, including elderly and disabled.It will work with a number of U.N. agencies, with international and national NGO partners who are on the ground,” said Wignaraja.

UNDP estimates $667 million will be needed to cover the cost of livelihood activities for 4.5 million Afghans in the first year. It hopes to double the number of beneficiaries in the second year, if it is able to double the size of funding.

The agency says the launch of the Trust Fund is off to a good start, with a contribution of 50 million euros from the German government.
…

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What do ordinary Taliban fighters, those who fought an insurgency for two decades, think about governing a country? VOA’s Ayesha Tanzeem talked with many in the streets of Afghan capital Kabul this month. Many of them hesitated to answer controversial questions on human rights and women’s rights, saying those issues were best resolved by their leaders or religious scholars. Many claimed to be “simple people” who followed orders. And many continued to talk to her and her female translator, even when they said women should not be out without being chaperoned by a close male relative. Here is one such conversation.
…

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A bomb explosion in northwest Pakistan along the Afghanistan border has killed five security personnel, the Pakistani military said Thursday.

The three paramilitary soldiers and two police officers were conducting a “cordon and search operation” in Bajaur district late Wednesday when an improvised explosive device hit them, the military’s media wing said in a statement.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility, but suspicions immediately fell on the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), known as the Pakistani Taliban. 

Bajaur and surrounding Pakistani border districts served as strongholds of the banned militant group until recent years.

TTP, also designated as a global terrorist organization by the United States and the United Nations, has claimed responsibility for killing thousands of Pakistanis in bombings and other attacks since the group’s emergence in 2007.

The Pakistan military has carried out sustained operations against TTP bases, killing thousands of fighters and forcing others to take refuge on the Afghan side of the border. The operations led to a decline of more than 80% in terrorist attacks across Pakistan in the past few years.

Pakistani officials, however, note an uptick in TTP attacks since the start of the year, killing scores of people, mostly security forces.

The militant group is known to have close ties with the Afghan Taliban and assisted them in their two-decade long insurgency against U.S.-led international forces to oust the Western-backed government in Afghanistan.
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An international Russia-hosted meeting Wednesday pressed the Taliban to form a “truly inclusive” government in Afghanistan and called for the United Nations to convene a donor conference as soon as possible to help avert a humanitarian catastrophe facing the war-torn country.

The huddle, known as the Moscow format consultations on Afghanistan, was held with the participation of leaders of the interim Taliban government and senior officials from Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan, India, as well as five formerly Soviet Central Asian states.

“Participating countries call on the current Afghan leadership to take further steps to improve governance and to form a truly inclusive government that adequately reflects the interests of all major ethno-political forces in the country,” said a post-meeting joint statement.

The delegates expressed “deep concern” over the deteriorating economic and humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, stressing the need for the international community to mobilize efforts to provide assistance to the Afghan people.

Participants proposed to convene the U.N.-led donor conference “certainly with the understanding that the core burden of post-conflict economic and financial reconstruction and development of Afghanistan must be shouldered by troop-based actors which were in the country for the past 20 years.”

The statement pointedly referred to the United States and Western allied troops, whose abrupt withdrawal from Afghanistan after 20 years paved the way for the Taliban to regain control of the country in August. 

Washington also was invited to the Moscow talks, but U.S. officials cited technical reasons for not attending, though they promised to join future rounds.

While the West and world in general have refused to give official recognition to the Taliban government, Wednesday’s joint statement recognized the “new reality” of the fundamentalist group’s return to power in Kabul.

Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov while opening the meeting lauded the Taliban government’s efforts to improve the security and political situation. 

“[However], we see the formula for its successful solution mainly in the formation of a truly inclusive government, which should fully reflect the interests of all, not only ethnic, but also political forces of the country,” Lavrov said.

The head of the Taliban delegation, Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Salam Hanafi, while addressing the meeting, renewed a call for the global community to recognize the new government in Kabul and again demanded the United States unfreeze about $10 billon in Afghan central bank in foreign reserves.

Hanafi defended his interim government as “already inclusive” and said they would not accept any deal under pressure and cautioned against “isolating” Afghanistan.

The Taliban’s return to power has raised concerns whether they will protect human rights of Afghans and whether they will prevent the country from becoming a terror sanctuary. The worries stem from the Islamist movement’s rule in the 1990s, when it hosted leaders of the al-Qaida network and barred women from public life and girls from receiving an education. 

The Taliban have dismissed those fears, saying they have opened government offices for both male and female staff to return to work and girls are gradually being allowed to resume education activities. 

But the hardline group is already under fire for reneging on some of its pledges to protect human rights and is being accused of persecuting members of the ousted Afghan government.

“I would like to remind you all that the people of Afghanistan have no intention of harming any country or nation in the world,” Hanafi assured Wednesday’s meeting. He said the Taliban government “stands ready to address all the concerns of the international community with complete clarity, transparency and openness.”

Hanafi’s speech to the meeting in the Russian capital came a day after Deputy U.S. Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said he sees no situation where the Taliban would be allowed access to its funds in the U.S. reserves.

“We believe that it’s essential that we maintain our sanctions against the Taliban but at the same time find ways for legitimate humanitarian assistance to get to the Afghan people. That’s exactly what we’re doing,” Adeyemo told the Senate Banking Committee.

The U.S. and other Western countries are working out how to engage with the Taliban without giving them the legitimacy they seek, while facilitating the flow of humanitarian aid to Afghans.

Adeyemo said the Treasury was taking every step it could within its sanctions program to make clear to humanitarian groups that Washington wants to facilitate the flow of aid into Afghanistan.

Russia says its diplomatic offensive to garner support for Kabul stems from concerns that continued instability would encourage terrorist groups to threaten the security of Afghanistan’s neighbors and the wider region. 

Lavrov highlighted those fears while opening Wednesday’s meeting and urged the Taliban to deliver on their pledge to prevent terrorist groups from threatening Russia’s “friends and allies.”

The Afghan branch of Islamist State, known as IS-Khorasan, has in recent weeks carried out dozens of bomb attacks, killing and injuring hundreds of people across Afghanistan, most of them civilians.

The violence is of major concern to neighboring countries and is raising questions about the Taliban’s ability to counter the growing terror threat.
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Russia has lauded the efforts of Afghanistan’s Taliban government to improve the national security and political situation but stressed the need for the Islamist group to ensure inclusivity in its governance to achieve a stable peace in the war-torn country. 

 

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made the remarks Wednesday while opening a Moscow-hosted international meeting to discuss the Afghan crisis with Taliban leaders and delegates from 10 countries, including China, Pakistan, Iran and India. 

 

“A new administration is in power [in Kabul]. We note the efforts they take to stabilize the military and political situation and set up work for the state apparatus,” Lavrov said. 

 

“[However], we see the formula for its successful solution mainly in the formation of a truly inclusive government, which should fully reflect the interests of all, not only ethnic, but also political forces of the country,” said the Russian chief diplomat. 

 

Lavrov said Moscow believes it’s time to mobilize global efforts to provide Kabul with effective financial, economic and humanitarian assistance to help prevent a humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan. 

 

Taliban Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Salam Hanafi, while addressing the meeting, renewed a call for the global community to recognize the new government in Kabul and again demanded the United States unfreeze about $10 billon in Afghan central bank in foreign reserves. 

 

The senior Taliban leader defended his interim government as “already inclusive” and said they would not accept any deal under pressure, according to the text of the speech Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid shared with media. 

 

Lavrov had made it clear in the run-up to the Moscow meeting that the discussions would not cover the issue of granting recognition to the Taliban, stressing the need for the group to live up to “expectations” on human rights.  

Hanafi’s speech to the meeting in the Russian capital came a day after Deputy U.S. Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said he sees no situation where the Taliban would be allowed access to the county’s reserves. 

 

“We believe that it’s essential that we maintain our sanctions against the Taliban but at the same time find ways for legitimate humanitarian assistance to get to the Afghan people. That’s exactly what we’re doing,” Adeyemo told the Senate Banking Committee. 

 

The Taliban regained control of Afghanistan in August after the United States and Western countries withdrew all their troops almost 20 years after the Islamist group was removed from power by the U.S.-led military invasion for harboring al-Qaida planners of terrorist attacks on America. 

 

The U.S. and other Western countries are working out how to engage with the Taliban without giving them the legitimacy they seek, while facilitating the flow of humanitarian aid to Afghans. 

 

Adeyemo said the Treasury was taking every step it could within its sanctions program to make clear to humanitarian groups that Washington wants to facilitate the flow of aid into Afghanistan. 

 

Chinese officials at Wednesday’s meeting renewed their resolve to work with the Taliban to help them deal with the economic and humanitarian challenges facing the country. 

 

Washington also was invited to the talks in Moscow, but U.S. officials cited logistical reasons for not attending them. 

 

The Taliban are under fire at home and internationally for reneging on some of their pledges to protect the rights of women and minorities. 

 

The hardline group is also being accused of persecuting members of the ousted Afghan government, charges Taliban officials reject as unfounded and politically motivated propaganda. 

 

Russia says its diplomatic offensive to garner support for Kabul stems from concerns continued instability would encourage terrorist groups to threaten security of Afghanistan’s neighbors and the wider region. 

 

Lavrov highlighted those fears while addressing Wednesday’s gathering in Moscow and urged the Taliban to deliver on their pledges of preventing terrorist groups from threatening Russia’s “friends and allies.”  

The Afghan branch of Islamist State, known as IS-Khorasan, has in recent weeks carried out dozens of bomb attacks, killing and injuring hundreds of people across Afghanistan, most of them civilians. The violence is of major concern to neighboring countries and is raising questions about the Taliban’s ability to counter the growing terror threat.

 

Reuters contributed some information for this report. 
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Among all the challenges facing Afghanistan, the most enduring is its position as the world’s leading producer of opium. Growing, cultivating, and selling the by-products of the indigenous poppy plant is entwined into Afghanistan’s economy & culture. And it has created an opium addiction crisis in Afghanistan. Before the U.S. military left the country, VOA’s Afghan Service traveled from the mountains to the cities, documenting the depth of the situation. Here’s part one in our series Afghanistan’s Addiction Crisis, narrated by Anne Ball.
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Former Afghan prosecutors at the Bagram prison’s legal and justice center – where thousands of Taliban and other militants were detained – say they are now in danger. VOA’s Waheed Faizi has the story.

 
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The Taliban’s acting interior minister, listed as a global terrorist by the United States, has hosted a ceremony in Kabul to honor suicide bombers responsible for the killings of thousands of U.S. and allied troops in Afghanistan. 

Sirajuddin Haqqani, who carries a $10 million U.S. bounty for any information leading to his arrest, met with families of some of the attackers at Monday’s event in an upscale hotel in the Afghan capital, Interior Ministry spokesman Qari Saeed Khosty said.

Khosty tweeted blurred images of Haqqani praying and embracing the family members of dead suicide bombers and said the minister later hailed the suicide bombers as “heroes of Islam and the country.” Haqqani has not been seen in public in recent years, including since the Taliban returned to power.

The Taliban regained control of the country in August after waging a deadly insurgency against the Western-backed Afghan government and U.S-led coalition forces for almost 20 years. The global community, however, has ignored the Islamist group’s calls for recognizing its interim government in Kabul, citing human rights and other concerns. 

“The advent of the Islamic system is the result of the blood of our martyrs,” said Haqqani, who is better known for leading the Haqqani network of militants that Washington blames for high-profile suicide attacks against foreign troops during the last two decades. 

“Now, you and I must refrain from betraying the aspirations of our martyrs,” Haqqani stressed. He distributed $125 to the families of the “martyred” and promised a plot of land for each family, Khosty said. 

Khosty later spoke to an Afghan television network and defended Haqqani for praising suicide bombers. He argued that the attacks were part of the Taliban’s “jihad” against the occupation of Afghanistan by U.S. and allied troops. He also defended blurring the images of Haqqani, citing security reasons for the minister to remain in the shadows. 

The Haqqani network’s financial and military strength are believed to have played a key role in helping the Taliban sustain and expand their insurgency.

Taliban officials reject as Western propaganda the existence of the network, saying Haqqani serves as a deputy to Hibatullah Akhundzada, the reclusive Taliban chief.

Critics say Monday’s ceremony in Kabul won’t help the Taliban’s quest for international recognition of their government, already under fire for lacking inclusiveness.

“The appointment of Siraj Haqqani to the acting minister of interior already made it hard for countries, the U.S. especially, to engage with the Taliban government,” said Jonathan Schroden, a military operations analyst at the U.S.-based Center for Naval Analyses. 

“His (Monday’s) actions will make it even harder and likely push any chances of formal government recognition further into the future,” Schroden told VOA.

“The international community will likely continue engaging with some non-Haqqani members of the Taliban in order to get humanitarian aid directly to the Afghan people, but there’s no question that actions like these will make it less palatable for those countries to consider formalizing relations with the Taliban government,” he said. 

Analyst Torek Farhadi, a former Afghan government adviser, said the key challenge facing the group is to “sensitize” [convince] all Taliban ranks that the war with America has ended, and “they must all pivot to win the economic war” to prevent poverty from spreading in the country. 

The Taliban “are composed of fringes and groups, some of which want to constantly remind others the deep sacrifices they have gone through in order to get to this point where they control the state,” Farhadi noted.

“Other fringes know in order to get recognized internationally, they must lower the rhetoric. But to forget about how intense the two decades of war was might cause some disgruntled fighters to leave their ranks and join violent groups such as ISIS-K,” Farhadi told VOA, using an acronym for the Afghan branch of Islamic State, or IS-Khorasan.

Taliban delegates are due to attend a multilayer meeting in Moscow on Wednesday with envoys from Russia, China and Pakistan — the latter two countries each share a border with Afghanistan. The issue of granting recognition to the new government in Kabul is expected to be raised by the Taliban. 

Russian, Chinese and Pakistani delegates held trilateral talks Tuesday ahead of the meeting with the Taliban and agreed to provide humanitarian and economic aid to Afghanistan.

A U.S. delegation was also invited to the meeting, but State Department spokesman Ned Price on Monday cited “logistical reasons” for not attending the Moscow-hosted talks and said a delegation would join such a sitting in the future. 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday that Moscow was withholding recognition from the Taliban while waiting for them to fulfill promises they made when they took power, including on the political and ethnic inclusivity of the new government. 

“Official recognition of the Taliban is not under discussion for now,” Lavrov told reporters. “Like most of other influential countries in the region, we are in contact with them. We are prodding them to fulfill the promises they made when they came to power,” he said. 

Washington has frozen nearly $10 billion in Afghan assets, mostly parked in the U.S. Federal Reserve, since the Taliban takeover of the country.

The U.S. administration maintains it wants to hold the group accountable to pledges that they will protect the rights of all Afghans, specifically those of women, and install an inclusive government to govern the turmoil-hit country. 

 
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Afghan businesswomen say that they have been forced to close their businesses as the Taliban have imposed a ban on women working outside. Yalda Baktash has the story. Script writer: Roshan Noorzai
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Pakistan said Tuesday its naval forces had detected and blocked an Indian submarine from entering Pakistani territorial waters.

A military statement alleged the incident took place last Saturday.

“It is the third incident of its kind wherein an Indian Naval Submarine has been prematurely detected and tracked by PN (Pakistan Navy) long range maritime patrol aircraft,” said the military’s media wing known as the Inter-Services Public Relations or ISPR.

There was no immediate response from neighboring India to the Pakistani allegations.

The two nuclear-armed South Asian nations routinely accuse the other’s military of committing border violations, but sea encounters are rare.

Pakistan’s tensions with India remain high over the disputed Kashmir region. Both nations claim Kashmir in its entirety and have fought two of their three wars over the region since gaining independence from Britain in 1947.

“During the prevailing security milieu, a strict monitoring watch has been kept by Pakistan Navy to safeguard maritime frontiers of Pakistan,” said Tuesday’s statement.

Pakistan last reported such intrusions by the Indian navy in March 2019 and November 2016.
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Indian authorities have moved thousands of migrant workers in Kashmir to safer locations overnight, while hundreds have fled the Himalayan valley after a wave of targeted killings, two security officials said Monday. 

Suspected militants have killed 11 civilians, including five migrant workers, in Kashmir since early October, despite a widespread security crackdown in the heavily militarized region. 

While the trigger for the latest wave of attacks was not immediately clear, Kashmir has been the site of armed insurgency against New Delhi for decades. Kashmir is claimed in full by India and Pakistan but ruled in parts by both. 

“We moved thousands of workers to secure places and are facilitating their return home,” a senior police official told Reuters, declining to be named as he was not authorized to speak to the media. 

In other areas, security forces had intensified patrolling to prevent any militant activity, the official added. 

A government spokesman in Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar declined to comment on the movement of migrant workers. 

The decision to move workers came after an attack on migrant laborers from Bihar on Sunday. Police said that militants barged into a rented room in Kashmir’s Kulgam district and fired at them, leaving two dead and one wounded. 

Kashmir has gone through various bouts of violence over the years, but the latest wave of attacks appears to be targeted toward non-Kashmiris, including migrant workers, and members of the minority Hindu and Sikh communities in the Muslim-majority valley. 

The hundreds of thousands of migrant workers currently in Kashmir form the backbone of the region’s workforce in agriculture and construction. 

Some of them said they now fear for their lives. 

“We have seen worse times, but were never targeted. This time, we are afraid,” said 32-year old Mohammed Salam, originally from the northern state of Bihar, who has worked in Kashmir for the last six years. 

Salam said police picked him up, along with others, from rented accommodations Sunday night and moved them to a protected area. 

“We can’t sit idle here,” he said, “We will go back.” 

 
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