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Children at the Charah-e-Qambar camp for displaced persons on the outskirts of Kabul clutch lunch distributed by an international aid agency on Dec. 13.

Children at the Charah-e-Qambar camp for displaced persons on the outskirts of Kabul clutch lunch distributed by an international aid agency on Dec. 13. (Dianna Cahn/Stars and Stripes)

KABUL, Afghanistan — One man carries frayed photographs of his wounded children as they lay dying.

Another sold his sister to buy a new wife, because his first wife was killed, his second was wounded and he needed someone to care for his children. Now he has a new baby — another mouth he cannot feed.

Their homes in Helmand province destroyed by war, they live like beggars in makeshift shelters on the dirty outskirts of Afghanistan’s capital, not belonging anywhere.

Each year the war goes on, more Helmand families arrive at this ad hoc camp southwest of Kabul only to find that there is little work and a desperate inability to make ends meet. As long as the fighting continues, they have nowhere else to go.

“If I saw that my family could be safe in (the Helmand capital) Lashkar Gah, I would not stay for even a day in Kabul,” said Mullah Abdul Rahman, who fled from the Helmand city of Marjah in February 2010. That’s when the U.S. poured additional forces into southern Afghanistan and launched a pivotal operation to rout the Taliban from Marjah and give government a chance to take root.

But fighting lasted months, and families like Rahim’s, which first fled to Lashkar Gah, soon found themselves on the move again. They landed at Charah-e-Qambar, the largest of 29 informal settlements that have grown up around Kabul in recent years. Of the 1,000 families in the camp, about 800 are from Helmand, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

The surge strategy has since expanded into neighboring Kandahar province, and U.S. generals say they’ve achieved marked success in both regions.

Still, Gen. David Petraeus, top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, warned last week that the spring thaw will once again bring an intensified fighting season as the Taliban and other fighters try to regain their momentum.

At the Charah-e-Qambar camp, it means the quiet farming life that these displaced families once knew will remain a distant memory, while even more families are expected to flee renewed violence.

“I was a farmer before the war and I had a life like a king,” said Hayat Khan, a 24-year-old who grew poppy, corn and wheat in his home village near Sangin in Helmand province. Then his legs were damaged when a rocket propelled grenade struck his home during a firefight between Taliban and U.S. forces. It killed his first wife and injured his second wife.

“Now I cannot walk,” he said. “I cannot find a job. I cannot afford to see a doctor.”

It’s a life of squalor, living in a borrowed structure of hardened mud with a simple tarp to keep it somewhat dry and no way to feed his growing family. Khan’s newest wife, whom he took to help care for the family, gave birth just 10 days earlier, and she’d yet to eat any meat, he said. Khan’s mother, Bibi, fussed over the swaddled infant lying on a suspended swing.

Like many at Charah-e-Qambar, Bibi Khan blamed foreign forces for the insecurity.

“When the Taliban attack a convoy,” she said, “the foreigners come and bomb the whole village. They can’t distinguish between the fighters and civilians.”

Illness and misery

Charah-e-Qambar is an incongruous place of single-story mud huts, tarp roofs and filthy children, alongside the economic bustle of Kabul. Nearby construction forms a natural boundary for the camp while industrial shops line the main road as it heads into the ever-expanding capital.

The men who live there say they can sometimes earn a day’s pay helping on a construction site or hauling goods. But work is hard to come by and the elements can be harsh.

Cold weather killed 19 people at Charah-e-Qambar in the 2009-2010 winter and respiratory illnesses are common, said Ministry of Refugees spokesman Islamuddin Jurat.

Children at the Charah-e-Qambar camp for displaced persons on the outskirts of Kabul clutch lunch distributed by an international aid agency on Dec. 13.

Children at the Charah-e-Qambar camp for displaced persons on the outskirts of Kabul clutch lunch distributed by an international aid agency on Dec. 13. (Dianna Cahn/Stars and Stripes)

Hayat Khan, right, sits with his family at the Charah-e-Qambar camp for displaced people on the outskirts of the Afghan capital Kabul. Khan and his family fled violence in their home province Helmand.

Hayat Khan, right, sits with his family at the Charah-e-Qambar camp for displaced people on the outskirts of the Afghan capital Kabul. Khan and his family fled violence in their home province Helmand. (Dianna Cahn/Stars and Stripes)

Residents of the Charah-e-Qambar camp for displaced people on the outskirts of Kabul while the hours away on Dec. 13, with no jobs and little means to feed their families.

Residents of the Charah-e-Qambar camp for displaced people on the outskirts of Kabul while the hours away on Dec. 13, with no jobs and little means to feed their families. (Dianna Cahn/Stars and Stripes)

Photographs of Baheer, 10, top, and Ghul Bashra, 8, after they were wounded when U.S. aircraft bombed their village during a fight in Sangin district, Helmand Province.  Their father carries the photographs with him.

Photographs of Baheer, 10, top, and Ghul Bashra, 8, after they were wounded when U.S. aircraft bombed their village during a fight in Sangin district, Helmand Province. Their father carries the photographs with him. (Dianna Cahn/Stars and Stripes)

Taj, a farmer from of Sangin district of Helmand Province, clutches photos of his dead children who were wounded in a bombing. The family fled to Kandahar and then to a displaced persons camp in Kabul.

Taj, a farmer from of Sangin district of Helmand Province, clutches photos of his dead children who were wounded in a bombing. The family fled to Kandahar and then to a displaced persons camp in Kabul. (Dianna Cahn/Stars and Stripes)

Hayat Khan, right, shows his scars from an RPG explosion at his home in Helmand Province. Khan´s family now lives in an informal camp for displaced people on the outskirts of Kabul.

Hayat Khan, right, shows his scars from an RPG explosion at his home in Helmand Province. Khan´s family now lives in an informal camp for displaced people on the outskirts of Kabul. (Dianna Cahn/Stars and Stripes)

Residents bury trash outside of the Charah-e-Qambar displaced persons camp on the outskirts of Kabul  on Dec. 13. Most residents of the camp fled heavy fighting in the southern Helmand Province.

Residents bury trash outside of the Charah-e-Qambar displaced persons camp on the outskirts of Kabul on Dec. 13. Most residents of the camp fled heavy fighting in the southern Helmand Province. (Dianna Cahn/Stars and Stripes)

This year, the U.S.-based Adventists Development Relief Agency supplied residents with winter coats, blankets, boots and coal, Jurat said. The agency also set up a school to teach the children and feeds them lunch each day.

With its city boundaries, Charah-e-Qambar is not likely to grow much larger. But the displaced will likely continue to come to the capital. The U.N. refugee agency says that of the 335,199 displaced people in Afghanistan, 137,000 of them were displaced by conflict since mid-2009 and Helmand created the highest numbers of displaced, Jurat said.

Residents say they would return home if security allowed it. But Jurat expressed a frequently uttered government skepticism that many of the displaced would rather stay in Kabul “because they can get everything for free here without any effort.”

Inside the camp on a weekday, men stood idly along a narrow dirt path while others busied themselves with improving their surroundings.

One man dug a latrine. Down the road, a group of men shoveled dirt from a big mound into a trash pit.

“We are doing this so our children won’t get sick,” said Mir Allam, the leader, who said he has been at Charah-e-Qambar since he fled the Gareshk district of Helmand province three years ago.

Life in the camp is hard, but at home, it was perilous.

“We were caught between the Taliban and the foreigners,” he said.

In Kabul, many say they are still caught in the middle. Rahman fled Marjah when the big operation started in February 2010. He blamed the Americans for the insecurity.

“When the Taliban were controlling Marjah, security was good,” he said, as others nodded agreement. “When the Americans arrived, security deteriorated.”

Then he and his family landed in Kabul only to find that people were suspicious of these ethnic Pashtuns from the south who dressed like the Taliban.

“We have nothing to do with the Taliban,” he said. “If you are Taliban, the government harasses you. If you are with the government, the Taliban harasses you. When I go to the city in these clothes, the police arrest me and tell me I am Taliban and if I go back to Helmand, the Taliban give me a hard time.”

Aid efforts hampered

The journey to Charah-e-Qambar is often meandering. Families describe fleeing their village and settling elsewhere only to have to pick up and run again when fighting or economic despair would catch up with them.

Rahman cultivated marijuana, corn and poppy in his native Marjah. He fled with many of his neighbors to Lashkar Gah, but he finally despaired of the flare-ups in fighting and left for Kabul in the fall.

Others, like Taj, a grieving father of two children killed in the volatile Sangin district of Helmand, came to Kabul via Kandahar.

This wandering can often make it more difficult for various aid agencies to track the plights of displaced families or to get them assistance if they don’t show up in some kind of camp, even an informal one like Charah-e-Qambar.

“These are people who lived at some time in Helmand or Kandahar and ultimately settled in Kabul city after wandering,” said Grainne O’Hara, head of the UNHCR sub-office in Kabul. “Many will go to host families. Many (internally displaced), you will ever know they are here.”

Taj stayed with wealthy relatives in Kandahar until they came into difficulties as well. Then he brought his family to Charah-e-Qambar, where on a recent day he stood clutching worn and tattered photographs.

He told his story on the condition that his last name not be revealed so that the Taliban can’t retaliate.

He carefully laid the pictures out on the ground in front of him. One showed a girl, lying motionless on a blanket. She wore no shirt and her stomach was smeared with blood. A bandage wrapped around her chest and shoulder was also stained with blood. The girl’s name was Ghul Bashra, Taj said. She was 8.

The other photo was of a 10-year-old boy, Bareeh, also wrapped in bloodied bandages around his waist and above his eye.

Those were two of his children, Taj said, killed when an American aircraft dropped bombs on his village and one landed on his house.

Now Taj’s wife just sits in silence and stares into space, he said. She doesn’t speak and he believes the loss has made her crazy.

“I have developed a problem as well,” he said. “I am depressed, and I feel like I live in a prison.”

Taj lost everything. His house was turned to rubble. His animals were killed. He borrowed money from his Kandahar relatives, then borrowed more to come to Kabul. He has no job and no way to pay it back.

The Taliban attacked a convoy and the Americans bombed his whole village, he said. But he blamed his fellow Afghans for the situation today.

“If it was not for the assistance of the Afghans, the Americans couldn’t come here,” he said. “We defeated the Russians, kicked them out of our country. But we brought in the Americans.”

As soon as the foreigners leave, he said, everything will go back to normal. The Taliban will take over. And anyone who worked for the government, civil servants or members of the Afghan National Army or Afghan National Police, “when the Taliban come back, they will kill them all.”

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