Swallowed by Kabul’s cracks

[dArKeR]

They live in tents and storefronts and abandoned ruins, cooking and bathing on patches of dirt. The men haunt traffic circles, hoping to be picked up for a day’s construction work. The women knock on doors asking for clothes to wash. The children forage for firewood and filch potatoes from bazaars.

THEY ARE RETURNEES without a refuge, the least skilled and most vulnerable of an estimated 750,000 Afghans who have flooded into Kabul in the past 18 months from Pakistan, Iran or other parts of Afghanistan where they had fled during years of war, drought, civil conflict and religious repression.
They came back because they had heard there was democracy and peace in their homeland. Mistakenly, they thought this also meant jobs, land and help. Instead, they fell straight between the cracks of a vastly overburdened Afghan government and an international aid network that is geared to help almost every category of need except theirs.

http://msnbc.com/news/985309.asp?0cl=c3

Personally, I think these people are returning with cash with the intent to open businesses and make money in Afghanistan.

[TahitiNut]

1. Link to original WP article

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17795-2003Oct25.html

(A typical Sunday "think piece" - not quite an Op/Ed.)

[Copperred]

2. Americans for Afghanistan! JOIN

www.american-afghan.com