Hundreds of men using heroin, opium and meth were scattered across a hill above Kabul in tents or lying on the ground. Some of them overdose and slip quietly across the line from despair to death.
“There’s a dead man next to you,” someone told me as I walked between them taking pictures.
“We buried someone there before,” said another.
Hundreds of Afghan addicts gather under a bridge to use drugs, mostly heroin and methamphetamines in the city of Kabul. (AP)
A man was face down in the mud, motionless. I shook him by the shoulder and asked if he was alive. He turned his head a little, only half of the mud, and whispered yes.
“You’re dying,” I told him. “Try to survive.”
“It’s okay,” he said, his voice sounding exhausted. “It’s okay to die.”
He raised his body a little. I gave him some water and someone gave him a glass pipe of heroin. Smoking it gave him some energy. He said his name was Dawood. He had lost a leg in a mine a decade ago during the war and was unable to work after that. His life fell apart and he turned to drugs to escape.
Drug addiction has long been a problem in Afghanistan, the world’s largest producer of opium and heroin and now a major source of methamphetamine. Drug use has been fueled by persistent poverty and decades of war that left few families unscarred. Addicted dogs sit among the hundreds of Afghan addicts. (AP)
It appears to be getting worse since the country’s economy collapsed after the Taliban seized power in August 2021 and the subsequent halt in international funding. Families that had once been able to survive found themselves cut off from life, and many could barely afford food. Millions have joined the ranks of the poor.
Drug users can be found around Kabul, living in parks and sewers, under bridges and on open hillsides.
An Afghan man searches for his drug-addicted brother among other addicts. (AP)
A 2015 UN survey estimated that up to 2.3 million people had used drugs that year, which would have been about 5% of the population at the time. Seven years later, the number is not known but is believed to have only increased, according to Dr Zalmel, head of the Department of Drug Demand Reduction who, like many Afghans, uses only one name.
The Taliban have launched an aggressive campaign to eradicate poppy cultivation. At the same time, they inherited the policy of the overthrown and internationally supported government of forcing drug users into camps.
Afghan drug addicts who were run over during a Taliban raid wait in a truck to be taken to a drug treatment camp, in Kabul, Afghanistan. (AP)
Earlier this summer, Taliban fighters raided two areas frequented by drug users: one on a hillside and one under a bridge. They picked up about 1,500 people, officials said. They were taken to Avicenna Medical Hospital for drug treatment, a former US military base.
It is the largest of several treatment camps in Kabul. There, residents were shaved and kept in a barracks for 45 days. They do not receive treatment or medication while going through withdrawal. The camp barely has enough money to feed those living there.
A man shaves before entering a drug camp in Afghanistan. (AP)
These camps do little to treat addiction.
A week after the raids, both locations were once again filled with hundreds of people using drugs.
On the hillside, I saw a man wandering in the dark with a weak flashlight. He was looking for his brother, who fell into drug use years ago and left home. “I hope one day I can find it,” he said.
A man in the detoxification room of a camp for drug addicts. (AP) Detox camps are doing little to treat drug addiction, which is estimated to be on the rise since the Taliban seized power last year. (AP)
Under the bridge, where the stench was overwhelming, a man in his 30s who identified himself as Nazer looked like a respected figure, breaking up fights and mediating disputes.
He said he spends most of his days under the bridge, but occasionally goes to his house. Addiction has spread throughout his family, he said.
When I expressed surprise that the area under the bridge had filled in again, Nazir smiled.
“It’s normal,” he said. “Every day there are more and more… It never ends.”