Children in Afghanistan 1

From a series

Hello again,

I’m collecting together the photos from the last two years in Afghanistan, I first went there in January 2021, and since visited regularly with news crews and documentary filmmakers. I was trying to find categories for them and so far have split them into Children, Women, Men, Taliban. The Taliban may find that a bit unfair, they told me several times they were Afghan men, and they are, but I want to separate it as a historically significant group—more photos later. Here are some of the children I met, there are around 1500 photos now after I’ve deleted several similar photos. I’ll send you them every so often as I catalogue them further.

1) Girl and boy living rough in Shahr-e-Naw Park, the families were internally displaced people escaping the fighting between government forces and the Taliban, they had separated themselves from each other with sheets and slept on the cold ground and survived with donations of bread by those passing on their way to work. The rough sleepers were eventually taken back to their homes before the winter by the Taliban. Kabul, Afghanistan, October 2021. 

2) Aneesa and Waheeda play in a potato field with their friends while her father works. The girls would collect the potatoes and pile them up as their dad dug with a shovel into the ground. We were driving through Logar when we saw them on the side of the road. They welcomed us and the girls enjoyed seeing their faces on screens on the backs of the cameras we had. It was July and it was hot. Logar, Afghanistan, July 2022. 

3) Bottle boys. We saw young boys and girls collecting plastic bottles across Afghanistan, these young chaps were in Mazar-e-Sharif in the north. Collecting plastic bottles for recycling makes 20 Afs ($0.2) per kilogram, tins are prized as they make the weight up quicker. It can take all day to make a dollar, if it’s possible. Mostly not. Kids will rummage through bins for plastic or if they see you finishing a bottle they’ll ask for it. It takes the whole day and way into the night for kids to earn enough money to feed themselves, but they usually are collecting for their families too. Education? They’ll likely never get one. Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan, September 2021.  

Thank you for your support this year, I’ve appreciated it, between being in Afghanistan where it can be hard to post since I’m working for others, or lately being ill (much better now thanks to the dedicated doctors and nurses who chose medicine), I can see it’s been intermittent. I’ll keep trying. Have a good day where you are.

Please share this diary with your friends.

Adnan