A number of horrific incidents of forced displacement by Taliban

By RAWA reporters, August 22,1999

These are only a number of horrific incidents from thousand like this which happened recently when the people of northern region were forced by Taliban to be resettled. From the number of incidents mentioned here one can imagine the most inhumane and brutal way that the Taliban handle these people. The fight between Northern Alliance and Taliban has brought a devastating effect on the ordinary people who live in the Northern Region of Afghanistan. In a move to dislodge the bases of Northern Alliance the innocent and ordinary people who live in the north have been forced to evacuate their homes in order to be resettled in other areas controlled by the Taliban. Recent fighting in Afghanistan has brought the most disastrous effect on the livelihood of ordinary people beyond what we have noticed of atrocities in Kashmir and Kosovo.


* In one of the recent incidents an Afghani woman called Afghan Gul from Qala Dako village of the northern region of Afghanistan lost her life as a result of a deep anger towards the Taliban decision to move her out of her house, which resulted to her a heart attack. The body of Afghan Gul was buried in a place called Pulecharkhi. Afghan Gul left two young children behind with a name of Pari and Qasem who were left with the people of Dehkoh Village to be looked after.

* Thousands of women and children who's men have been jailed in prisons by Taliban were forced to leave their houses were located in a place in Nengarhar Province called Sareshahee camp much faraway from their original homes. The women who want to escape the camp can only do so by bribing the watchmen of the camps appointed by the Taliban as high as 1,500,000 to 2,000,000 Afghani. A newly wed bride from Farza village was one of those women who bribed the watchmen in order to be close to her husband in Kabul who has been prisoned by the Taliban in notorious Pulecharkhi prison. It was a mater of shear luck that the mother of her husband, Barqi Gul was informed of the where about of the newly wed bride and finally managed to pay the watchman in order to buy her freedom.

* Thousands of innocent women and children of northern region are forced to move into former Russian Embassy compound by the Taliban. Most of these children and women suffer from luck of proper shelter, food, water and medicine and they are in constant fear that they will finally be forced by the Taliban to be settled in Khost Province hundreds miles away from home.

* Siddiqa a young woman from Sinjid Dara who was forced to leave her village said that since she had left her village she was given two piece of bread for children only. "We were all very hungry and it was not for certain what would happen to us. I was saved by my cousin who was working near to place where we were supposed to be deported."

* Mullah Sadrazam one of the leaders of Taliban opposing the forced transfer of women and children to Camp Sare Shahi, Jalal Abad, blocked the journey of two pick up cars carrying women and children and asked their drivers to return their passenger to places where they had come from. However, the two cars have disappeared since and no body knows what happened to the women and children.

* On 13th of August 1999 when a bus full of children and women which was ordered by Taliban to transfer their passengers by force a woman with unlimited rage of anger threw herself off the bus near Pule Khawaja Bughra. She was severely injured and on the way to hospital lost her life. Another young woman took the same action on the 15th of August by throwing herself from moving bus. She was also killed instantly.

* On 13th of August a fight broke out between Taliban from Kandahar and the Arabs and Pakistanis and their other Taliban supporters. The reason for the fight was that the Taliban from Kandahar were opposing the forced transfer of the women and children to Jalalabad and were blocking the roads for these buses. A number of Taliban were killed in the fight.

* Majority of the citizen of Kabul including Pashtons and Tajik condemned the forced transfer of the women and children by Taliban and they called such action to be against Afghan tradition and un-Islamic.



Photos of forced displacement of people by Taliban

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