River Floods Claim Lives, Territory

Afghan officials and neighbouring countries blamed as land and property are swallowed up by border river.

People living near the mighty Oxus, or Amu Darya, river in northern Afghanistan say they want the authorities to shore up its banks to protect them because they are fed up with seeing their land, animals, property and homes washed away in floods.

Residents of Shortipa and Kaldar districts of Balkh province, among the worst affected, demonstrated by blocking the main highway between Mazar-e-Sharif and Hairatan on the Turkmenistan border in February. They threatened a permanent blockade of the road if action is not taken.

One of them, Gholam Qoli, said angrily, "The river destroyed tens of hectares of my land. I do not even have a loaf of bread now. The central government pays no attention to the people of this area. We are Afghan citizens. Why are our problems not addressed?"

Another demonstrator, 45-year-old Qorban Berdi, who owned land, a house and 200 animals beside the river, lost almost everything last year when it breached its banks.

"The river overflowed while we were asleep at night. My house and animals sank into the river. I rescued my family. Only 18 out of my 200 animals survived, stuck in the mud and we rescued them the next day. Right now, we live away from the river in sands of Kaldar district," he said.

"The area where my house and land are located now belongs to Uzbekistan. The river gives our land to Uzbekistan every year, but our ministers don’t care.”

He says that he has received no help from the government or other organisations.

The Oxus forms 1,200 kilometres of Afghanistan’s border with Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Every year, it swallows hundreds of homes and hundreds of thousands of hectares of Afghanistan's land along with hundreds of animals, and local people say the government is ignoring the issue. The problems mainly affect the Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan borders.

Local officials in the northern provinces also say some Afghan nationals have been caught up in border incidents because the line of the frontier has become uncertain. They say two people have been killed and two injured on the Uzbekistan border in this way and the same number killed and injured on the Turkmenistan frontier.

They say if the matter is not addressed, new political problems will emerge between Afghanistan and its northern neighbours.

Local officials and people in the affected areas warn that seasonal flooding of the Oxus will start again soon and they are very worried about further damage.

The Turkmenistan ambassador in Kabul, Ata Jan Abdullahov, told IWPR in a telephone interview that Turkmenistan had recently strengthened the banks of the river that were on the verge of giving way and submerging land on that side.

“When the area floods, it will destroy both Afghan and Turkmenistan sides of the river. However, we are ready to resolve the issue with the agreement of all neighbouring countries including Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan. Turkmenistan is fully ready in this respect,” he said.

He said that he had no knowledge Afghans killed or injured in the river border area.

Asked to comment, an official at the Uzbekistan consulate in Mazar-e-Sharif told IWPR, “We do not talk about the Amu river.”

Mohammad Hashem Zareh, governor of Jowzjan province, told IWPR that the Oxus has destroyed 165,000 hectares of land there alone. He said that six districts are faced with famine and drought every year while the neighbouring countries take more water than they should from the river. He also blamed some Afghan government officials.

Balkh provincial governor Ata Mohammad Nur called on the government to take serious steps to defend Afghan territory before it becomes a major issue with the neighbouring countries.

“This problem will create political conflicts between Afghanistan and the neighbours in the future," he said.

He said he has contacted government and non-government officials about the river many times but he could not find anyone who would listen to him.

The issue has already contributed to some security problems.

General Khalil Bakhtiar, commander of border police in the area, says that destruction of the river banks has created difficulty in siting checkpoints. "We want to construct permanent [ones] for the border police with funds from Germany so that we can use them in summer and winter, but the river floods mean we cannot do this,” he said.

“Checkpoints have been destroyed by the river in the past. The river has shifted 100 metres towards Afghan side.”

The shifting river has left some checkpoints stranded in what has become Uzbek territory, he added.

Qazi Najibullah, mayor of the border town of Hairatan, says that homes and agricultural land are destroyed by the river not only by floods but also by erosion caused by the wash from Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan patrols boats.

"We have discussed the problem with officials of the neighbouring countries to the north many times, but they tell us to consolidate our river banks and they do not stop their patrols," he said. "If the problem is not taken seriously, the border town of Hairatan and the Dosti Bridge [to Uzbekistan], which is the biggest bridge in Afghanistan with a length of one km, will also be damaged due to the flooding.”

He says that the Afghan side uses sandbags to shore up river banks while its neighbours use concrete walls.

Officials of the Afghan ministry of energy and water say it has been unable to consolidate the river banks because of a lack of funds.

Mahmud Mahmudi, general director of the department of water management at the ministry, said it had been able to shore up 40 vulnerable points along the river last year but it needs a plan and a long-term budget. He estimates the budget needed for the project to be more than 300 million US dollars.

However, Afghan engineers believe that the problem could be solved cheaply by using gabions – wire cages filled with rocks.

Mohammad Asef, an engineering expert, said finding rocks in Afghanistan is very easy, "This method was used at a point in the river in the border town of Hairatan a few years ago by a foreign organisation and they survived for years. This is the best solution."

Rozi Geldai Oichi, a local representative in the national assembly, told IWPR, "The issue of consolidation of the river banks of the Oxus has been discussed in the national assembly and with the president many times, but the project stopped due to a lack of funds."

He said that both Shortipa and Kaldar districts may slide into the Oxus if the government does not take action to strengthen the banks.

Allah Nazar, 50, a resident of Shortipa district, says that he lost his house, land and animals due to flooding last year and now lives in poverty with his six-member family.

"My only hope was my house, land and animals. I lost them. I am a labourer now. When my land and house sank into the water, the government gave me just two sacks of wheat and a tent," he said.

Abdul Latif Sahak is an IWPR trainee in Mazar-e-Sharif.