Nahreen Survivors Face Uncertain Future

The destruction wrought by last month's earthquake in the Hindu Kush has severely compounded the dire problems faced by people in the region.

Survivors of the March 25 disaster have buried their dead, ferried the injured to medical facilities and the international agencies have more or less completed their emergency aid operation.

Locals may now be out of immediate danger, but the hardships they've had to deal with over the last decade or so - consecutive years of drought, the unwanted attentions of undisciplined militiamen or Jihadis - have now been made more acute by the consequences of the latest calamity to befall them: destroyed villages and the decimation of livestock.

Some 78 villages were virtually flattened across the district of Nahreen in Baghlan province. Strung out over the northern quarter of the Hindu Kush, it suffered continual aftershocks in the days following the initial quake. An estimated 11,000 homes, nearly 45 per cent of the district's total, were rendered uninhabitable.

In Nahreen town alone, 373 died and 1,650 were injured. From the edge of the town, the scene is one of devastation. Former residential areas have been reduced to rubble, pebbles and mud. Neighbouring villages - Quarcha, Joy-e-Kalan, Do Abi, Lakan Khel, Twa Shakh, Goda-e-Sangi - are no more.

As the aftershocks shook the ground and plumes of dust rose high into the sky from the nearby mountains, people screamed, fell to ground in prayer, reciting verses from the Koran. Survivors were so scared they braved the cold and spent the nights in fields.

Baghlan governor Molawee (Mullah) Zia ul-Haq and local military and police commanders set up a commission to manage aid and assistance soon after the quake, but it soon drew criticism from some of its supposed beneficiaries.

Many of the victims from the district's Pashtun community alleged discrimination on the part of the commission's managers, affiliated to the mainly Tajik Jamiat-e-Islami party. "The lists of names of our people are not being accepted by the commission," claimed one man.

The bigger problem, bigger even than the earthquake, said a group from the village of Lakan Khel, was the Jihadis. They were robbing and looting long before the destruction of March 25 and had been doing so ever since the fall of the Taleban.

Hatred of the militiamen runs deep. Many locals believed the quake was a punishment from God for the immorality the Jihadis had brought to Nahreen, citing lurid rumours of young boys forced to dress as girls and dance for the sexual delectation of the faction leaders. Theft, rape and vandalism are said to have been routine. "Our homes are never safe," said one villager.

Most local people have no homes to protect any more and few have any idea how they will rebuild them. "We built these homes almost 40, 50 years ago," said a Nahreen resident. "It was cheaper then, but today everything is much more expensive even when there are materials available."

The forgotten casualties of the quake were the district's precious livestock, especially the oxen, crushed to death in their stalls or by rock falls. "I am sadder to lose my oxen than I am to lose my house," said one farmer. "We cannot plough our fields without them; the land is too hard to plough by hand."

As well as struggling with their drought ravaged fields, farmers have to deal with the constant threat of landmines and unexploded bombs, the legacy of fighting between the Taleban and Northern Alliance.

It's clear huge problems will remain in the area long after the emergency agencies have finished their work.

The immediate response to the crisis is drawing to an end. The government's last consignment of assistance - two thousand tents and 40,000 meals for children under five, enough for 15 days - was recently delivered. And five teams of 18 Afghan doctors and nurses had been sent to the region.

A senior government official said he believed that there was now no need to send more medicines or food to the area for the moment. "Everything that can be done has been done," he told IWPR. Clearly much has been done to deal with the current crisis, but unless locals are helped to rebuild their lives it's doubtful whether they will be able to survive much longer.

Rahimullah Samander is a journalist with the Cooperation Centre for Afghanistan in Baghlan province.

IWPR's photographic report on the emergency response in Nahreen.