TDH Afghanistan (Photo Gallery2 Page)


Kabul during August 2000 Children in Afghanistan, December 2001 Maternal Health Projects in Kabul, November 2001 *People in Rustaq, January 2003* *Kabul, August 2000:* Afghanistan with about 245,000 square miles is a wildly beautiful country, landlocked within the heart of south-central Asia. The country is split by a north-south divide along the Hind Kush mountain range with fertile valleys that spread out onto largely deserted plains in the west and south. North of the Hindu Kush the bare Central Asian steppe is stretching thousands of miles north into Siberia. Time stands still in remote rural areas where herding and subsistence life continues much as it has for thousands of years. Even in Kabul, laden camels and donkeys as well as herds of sheep and goats are part of the everyday movement of life. Yet as a strategic crossroad of trade and regional and international struggles, Afghanistan has been fraught with political and military conflicts for centuries. The most recent conflict began more than 23 years ago. When an April 1978 coup brought a Marxist regime to power, an armed insurgency began within months. On Christmas Eve 1979, the Soviet Union poured thousands of troops into the country, executed the president, and replaced him with a pro-Soviet rival. The Afghan response was a resistance movement estimated at 1 million mujahidin or “holy warriors”, armed by the Western powers, mainly US America, at the height of the Cold War. By 1985, 100.000 Soviet troops occupied the country, agricultural production had dropped to half in the Eastern regions, food prices had tripled and over three and a half million of Afghanistan’s pre-war population of 15 million had fled into neighboring Pakistan, Iran and beyond. Another 1 million were internally displaced and over one million Afghans died during the Soviet conflict. In a war they were unable to win, the Soviets finally withdrew in 1989. With the Soviet withdrawal there followed a long struggle against the regime of President Najibullah until he was overthrown in 1992 and the mujahidin conquered Kabul. The commanders immediately turned on one another, vying for power, inflaming old tribal fears to boost their ranks and consolidate positions. Over the next four years, the country was thrown into a violent inner conflict. From the hillsides of Kabul the city was virtually laid to waste, as frequently 200 rockets a day pounded opposing factions, with the people, neighborhoods, universities, high schools, factories and houses devastated. The physical destruction of Kabul has turned it into the Dresden of the late twentieth century. (UNICEF - Lost Chances, July 2000)


Bus Station in Town Center	Central Shopping Area in Kabul	Central Shopping Street in Kabul	Cinema & Theatre in Kabul
Former Business Area in Kabul	Former French High School in Kabul	Former High School in Kabul	Kabul in Winter 2000
King's Palace in Summer	King's Palace in Winter	Koshhal Market in Kabul	Near Sarobi - Road to Kabul