Afghanistan: after another ten years of war a resilient people struggles on

03-10-2011 Photo gallery

Over the past decade of conflict in Afghanistan, ordinary people have born the brunt of the fighting, and have been affected in many ways. The ICRC's efforts to assist the most vulnerable communities and individuals is wide and diverse, as illustrated in this selection of images from 2001 to 2011.

- 2011. Local men in the garden of the ICRC sub-delegation in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan.
  © ICRC / T. Glass
They are waiting to make video telephone calls to their detained relatives in the US-run Parwan detention facility at Bagram airbase. An ICRC staff member talks to them about the work of the ICRC and gives them picture books illustrating the different activities. Most of the men in the audience are illiterate farmers.
- 2010. In the therapeutic feeding centre at Mirwais regional hospital in Kandahar, a father is waiting with his malnourished child while his temperature is read.
  © ICRC / K. Holt / v-p-af-e-01674
Malnutrition, which has many causes -- from poor hygiene and lack of education to simple poverty -- has risen this year in conflict-affected parts of southern Afghanistan. Mirwais Regional hospital covers the four southern provinces and has a catchment area of four million people. It is run by the Ministry of Public Health, and has been supported by the ICRC for the past 15 years.
- 2009. Since 1996, when the ICRC began its support to Mirwais Regional hospital in Kandahar, dozens of Afghan surgeons have been trained.
  © ICRC / J. Powell / v-p-af-e-01596
The operating theatres are kept extremely busy dealing with the war wounded, and also with victims of mass casualty incidents such as suicide bombings and traffic accidents.
- 2008. A distribution of food and emergency household items takes place in the Shegal district of Kunar province eastern Afghanistan, for 14,000 people displaced by violence in Bajaur Agency, which lies across the border in Pakistan.
  © ICRC / M. Naseem Sahar / v-p-af-e-01341
- 2008. Children fetch water from a hand pump that the ICRC has installed in Tanar camp, in Kunar province, eastern Afghanistan, so the families living there can have ready access to clean water.
  © ICRC / L. Ponchon / v-p-af-e-01344
For displaced people and rural villagers alike, water is a vital need, but often hard to find. The ICRC trains villagers in hand pump management, so that they can carry out simple repairs and ensure that the pumps don’t break down.
- 2007. An ICRC delegate visits the Kabul Military Training Centre to provide instruction on international humanitarian law (IHL) to Afghan National Army recruits.
  © ICRC / M.Kokic / v-p-af-e-01003
Besides conducting training courses for the Afghan military and the police, shorter dissemination sessions take place on a regular basis, to inform arms carriers on all sides of the conflict about respect for IHL.
- 2007. In Kandahar central prison an ICRC delegate talks with a detainee in the juvenile section.
  © ICRC / M.Kokic / v-p-af-e-00918
Visits to places of detention are carried out all over Afghanistan, to monitor the conditions of detention, the treatment of detainees, and to enable them to keep in touch with their families through Red Cross messages. Where the ICRC sees that improvements are needed in conditions and treatment, it makes bilateral and confidential recommendations to the detaining authorities and carries out repeat visits to monitor progress.
- 2007. In Dako, which lies some 15 kilometres outside Kabul, the Afghan Red Crescent Society carries out mine risk education in the village primary school, alerting students to the dangers of landmines and other explosive remnants of war.
  © ICRC / M. Kokic / v-p-af-e-00943
This village was on the front line between rival armed groups throughout the 1990s. Only recently, a 10-year-old boy in the village found an explosive device in his garden. It exploded and he lost his hand. Children are taught to recognize such weapons, to not touch them, and to report what they have discovered to the local authorities.
- 2006. In a village near Kunduz, in northern Afghanistan, a Red Cross message is received by the family of a detainee.
  © ICRC / V. Louis / v-p-af-e-00388
Red Cross messages contain only family news and are intended to help loved ones who are separated from each other to keep in touch. Red Cross messages are also the first step in the process to help trace people who have gone missing. For detainees in many prisons around the world, they are often the only direct contact they may have with their relatives during their detention.
- 2006. At an Afghan Red Crescent health post, women bring their sick children for consultation. In remote rural areas, such facilities are often the only available form of medical care.
  © ICRC / V. Louis / v-p-af-e-00402
- 2005. The Orthopaedic Centre in Kabul is one of seven such facilities run by the ICRC throughout Afghanistan.
  © ICRC / O. Moeckli / v-p-af-e-00572
It treats thousands of mine victims and others with disabilities annually, and helps patients reintegrate back into society through vocational training, micro-credit loans and home visits for people with spinal chord injuries. Nearly all the physiotherapists and technicians working at the seven centres are themselves former patients.
- 2004. Farmers living near Shaidan village, 45 kilometres west of Bamyian marked a special day on 20 July with the inauguration of a dam built with ICRC support at the far end of the narrow Dawaza gorge, in the shadow of the Baba mountains.
  © ICRC / J. Barry / v-p-af-e-00282
- 2004. A mine victim living in Jalalabad helps to supplement her husband’s income by making clothes and selling items in the local bazaar. Her sewing machine was purchased with a micro-credit loan from the ICRC.
  © ICRC / J. Barry / v-p-af-n-00303-01a.
- 2003. The ICRC in Kabul reunited these two brothers with their father, after they had been seperated from him for two years. Zekria, (7) and Sher Hussain (11) had been living in Pakistan.
  © ICRC / v-p-af-e-00186
One of the major activities of the tracing agency of the ICRC in all its delegations around the world is to offer its services to help reunite families who have become separated, in agreement with all those concerned.
- 2002. In the early years of the decade, the ICRC ran a massive assistance programme covering many parts of Afghanistan, and regularly distributed basic food supplies such as the ones seen here in Ghor province.
  © ICRC / P. Bourgeois / v-p-af-e-00150
Preparations for an ICRC food distribution have to be carried out with meticulous care so as to ensure that the process runs smoothly, and the beneficiaries receive their rations in timely fashion.
- 2001. Women patiently wait their turn to be called forward to receive their share of an ICRC food distribution targeting 70,540 vulnerable families in Charkhcharan, Ghor province. Some of them walked for more than five days to reach the distribution point.
  © ICRC / N. Danziger / v-p-af-e-00004

Afghanistan: after another ten years of war a resilient people struggles on

03-10-2011 Photo gallery

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