HERAT (Pajhwok): The war has ended for the internally displaced people in the Sheidai township in western Herat province, but drought and unemployment continue to keep them away from their homes.
Families living in the township are struggling with the hardships of life and spend their days and nights worrying about finding food and an uncertain future.
Hundreds of families displaced from their original homes live in the Sheidai township.
Their children play in old clothes and barefoot in mud made and ramshackle houses, while their men search for daily work with little hope and their women look at empty dastarkhwan (tablecloth) with tired faces.
Some of these families once harvested wheat and planted cereals in their farmlands, but now the only thing left is poverty and hunger. Repeated droughts have driven them into exile in their own land.
A difficult life in Sheidai township
Hundreds of displaced families who fled the past conflicts and repeated droughts to the Sheidai township say they cannot afford to meet their basic needs.
76-year-old Musa slowly walks to the mosque with the help of a cane. He once planted cereals in his fields, but now he is even deprived of drinking water and other basic necessities of life in the Sheidai township.
“We came here to survive, but we can’t even find water, I have to ask my neighbors to give us water to drink,” said Abdul Naseer, another 41-year-old who spends his days and nights with his family of nine in a mud-and-wood-roofed house in the Sheidai town.
His cracked hands and sunburned face show he has worked for years in the fields, but now his lands in Badghis province are barren due to lack of water and he is looking for alternative way to make a living in Herat.
“When there was war, we hoped that one day peace would come and we would return to our homes, but now that peace has come and the war is over, drought has prevented us from returning to our homes,” he said with a cold smile.
Abdul Naseer fled Badghis with his family seven years ago due to fighting in their area, but now that the fighting is over, water shortages and the destruction of agricultural land have made it difficult for him to return to his hometown, and he is currently struggling with many hardships of life.
“If I don’t find work for a week, if my children don’t collect plastic bottles from garbage piles and sell them, we don’t even have enough food for one meal,” he said.
Allahdad, a middle-aged man who lives in a dilapidated house, is also a native of Badghis. He would grow wheat, barley and cumin on his land in his province once or twice a year, but now he can’t afford to return to the province because he lacks the resources to cultivate as the groundwater level has also plummeted significantly.
“We would give grain to others, now we need our own food,” he said.
“We have been displaced for several years because of hunger. We have come here because there is no work or anything else. We are confused as to what to do; we cannot find a single morsel of bread, we have nothing for iftar or pre-dawn meal,” he lamented.
A Farah resident, who is struggling to support his family, said that some days he finds work and earn 300 afghanis a day, but he has a malnourished son. This 300 afghanis is not enough to cover his doctor’s fees or his household expenses.
On the other hand, officials from the Herat Department of Agriculture also confirm less raining this year than expected.
Ahmad Irfan, the director of statistics for the department, said that this year the province received only 89.85 millimeters of rainfall, which was 50 percent less than previous years in some areas.
Irfan said his department’s officials were trying to use various methods to prevent water loss and encourage farmers to adopt standard and effective farming methods.
According to him, the department’s officials are trying to introduce plants and agricultural products that are resistant to water scarcity to farmers.
He said asafetida was a good choice for farmers in the current conditions because the plant had good yields and was resistant to water scarcity.
Maulvi Sabir, deputy director of the Herat Disaster Preparedness Department, while expressing support for the displaced people, told Pajhwok Afghan News that 610 people affected by natural disasters and displaced people have received food and non-food assistance from the department this year.
He added his department was working in coordination with partner organizations to ensure necessary preparedness in emergencies and against natural disasters.
Herat, Badghis, Farah and Ghor are provinces which suffered the most from droughts in recent years.
Many families whose livelihoods relied on agriculture were forced to leave their original areas in some parts of the country and move to cities.
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