Where Afghans fear to tread

Refugees have a drought-stricken, landmine-covered country to reclaim

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Along with his seven-member family, Mohammad has been braving the sweltering summers and chilly winter nights in his plastic sheet made into a tent. Like thousands of other Afghan refugees, Mohammad doesn't want to go back.

"I belong to a farming family. This is all I know. How would I feed my family if I go back to my barren, dry lands?" said the bearded man in his early forties. "But equally important is security to our children. All we ask for is peace and food to enable us to return," he said in the same breath.

Forgotten by the world after the pull out of the Soviets in February 1989, Afghanistan has become home to multifaceted crises. Constant fighting after the 1979 Soviet invasion of the country -- whose 75 percent of land is occupied by mountainous terrains with little or no vegetation and the rest by deserts and farmlands -- has turned it into an environmentalist's nightmare.

"We are looking at a country where crops have failed, fields and orchards withered, rivers, dams and wells dried up, and livestock herds -- a source of livelihood for millions of Afghans -- perished," commented an official of the World Bank, which is likely to be one of the lead agencies that would disburse money for the reconstruction of Afghanistan promised by the world community.

According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), the drought that persisted for three years has affected much of Afghanistan, destroying the livelihood of over one million people in one of the poorest countries in the world, where more than a quarter of the children die before reaching the age of five and adult life expectancy is only 44 years. Some reports suggest that more than 10,000 villages and their surrounding environments have completely been destroyed by war and drought.

"Some 80 percent of the livestock is reportedly dead. The Argun water reservoir which supplied water to 500,000 farmers and the urban inhabitants of Kandahar for the past 15 years has run dry, as have reportedly eight of the 10 rivers in the region," said a UNHCR report on years of drought in the country.

However, the exact magnitude of the environment disaster has so far not been documented. "There is no authentic information on the quality of air, water, vegetation, land, and other environmental factors," commented Siddique Momand, who is chief of the Afghan Refugees Affairs in the newly appointed government of the eastern Nangarhar province. "We understand the link of people with the environment and their traditional reliance on natural resources," he told IPS in an interview by telephone from the provincial capital Jalalabad.

Siddique said that years of war in the country have badly damaged the environment and natural resources. "While there was tremendous devastation, there was no money to put back in the rehabilitation and conservation efforts," he said. "We are still trying to gather the exact magnitude of damage done by months of American bombing, but we do have confirmed reports that many small and large dams and water reservoirs in the southern parts of the country are totally devastated."

But what he said with authority was that war has reduced thick forests into deserts as a result of massive logging by locals. "While many forests were burned by the use of heavy war technology, the rest were cut and smuggled to Pakistan," he explained.

An OXFAM factsheet on Afghanistan gives a slight idea of the ground situation in Afghanistan. "Though the country was badly under-developed even before the Soviet invasion, the 20 years of war have reduced existing infrastructure to ruins. Only two percent of the population has access to health care and 12 percent to safe drinking water. More than 70 percent of the population is illiterate and this rises to nearly 90 percent amongst women," said the fact sheet.

Amid sketchy information, the world community is struggling with reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts is Afghanistan. The costs may run more than $20 billion over the next few years. "The country will require substantial humanitarian, rehabilitation and reconstruction assistance over a long period to reduce poverty and promote sustainable development," said a spokesperson for the Asian Development Bank that co-hosted a conference on Afghanistan's reconstruction along with the World Bank and the UNDP.

"Major support will also be required for capacity building to re-establish effective governance and rebuild the country. Initial assistance could be aimed at food security, health, water and sanitation, provision of shelter, basic social infrastructure, and assistance to returning refugees and internally-displaced persons," the spokesperson said.

While the country's rebuilding will be an incentive for the Afghan warlord to keep peace, it certainly is important for more than three million refugees living in Pakistan and Iran and almost six million vulnerable “Internally Displaced Persons” in Afghanistan (25 percent of the total population) to return to their homes.

"We survived years of war… When we didn't get food, our lands dried and there were no rains for years, we had to leave," said Bibi Sughra, an Afghan refugee at New Shamshatoo Camp near Peshawar, who belongs to Jokhan village near Jalalabad.

Many refugees, however, fear returning to their homes for fear of landmines that have maimed thousands, if not millions, of Afghan people over the last two decades. "I (with his family of eight) left after my 11-year-old son lost both his legs when he stepped on a bomb (landmine) in our small vegetable farm. We felt so insecure that we decided to leave" said Raheemuddin, who lives at Jalozai and hails from Panjsher Valley.

According to some reports, landmines in Afghanistan are the worst environmental nightmare and are responsible for the killing of 15 people, mostly civilians, every day. More than 10 million landmines in the country are awaiting preys in farmlands, roadsides, forest, mountains and waterways. The cluster bombs dropped by the American bombers in its recent military campaign have only added to the fear.

"In addition to agricultural recovery, food security, rehabilitation of water reservoirs and irrigation canals and educational institutions, Afghanistan's most pressing needs include fields free of landmines," said a leader of the National Islamic Front of Afghanistan (NIFA), which led the Peshawar Process also represented at the Bonn Conference.

Muddassir Rizvi last wrote "Pakistan’s nukes" for WorkingForChange.com.