Afghanistan: Rounded up from the streets into Taliban drug rehab

"I was nether the span trying to get immoderate drugs erstwhile I felt a manus drawback maine from behind. It was the Taliban. They had travel to instrumentality america away."

Mohamed Omar recalls the infinitesimal Taliban soldiers showed up unexpectedly astatine the Pul-e-Sukhta span successful occidental Kabul.

Long earlier the hardline Islamist radical returned to powerfulness successful August 2021, the country was a notorious hangout for cause addicts.

In caller months, the Taliban person been rounding up hundreds of men crossed the superior - from the bridge, from parks and from the hilltops. Most person been taken to a erstwhile US subject base, which has been turned into a makeshift rehabilitation centre.

Afghanistan is the cause addiction superior of the world. An estimated 3.5 cardinal radical - successful a state with a colonisation of astir 40 cardinal - are addicted, according to the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement.

Under the Pul-e-Sukhta bridge, hundreds of men tin often beryllium seen squatting - hunched among piles of rubbish, syringes, faeces and occasionally the corpses of those who had overdosed.

The drugs of prime are heroin oregon methamphetamine.

The stench beneath the span is overwhelming, with dogs rummaging done piles of litter, looking for scraps of food. Overhead, postulation flows, thoroughfare vendors hawk goods, and commuters unreserved to drawback buses astatine the section depot.

"I would spell determination to conscionable my friends and instrumentality immoderate drugs. I didn't fearfulness death. Death is successful God's hands anyway," says Omar.

The men who called this spot location were mostly forgotten, contempt the erstwhile government's argumentation of rounding up addicts and placing them successful centres. But erstwhile the Taliban retook power of the country, they launched a much assertive run to region them from the streets.

"They utilized pipes to whip and bushed us," says Omar. "I broke my digit due to the fact that I didn't privation to permission the span and I resisted. They inactive forced america out."

Omar was shoved onto a bus, alongside dozens of others.

Footage aboriginal released by the Taliban authorities showed their soldiers clearing the country of addicts who had died from an overdose - their lifeless bodies being carried distant wrapped successful acheronian grey shawls. Others, inactive living, had to beryllium taken retired connected stretchers due to the fact that they were unconscious.

The rehabilitation infirmary wherever Omar was taken has 1,000 beds and presently 3,000 patients. Conditions are squalid. The men are kept successful the centre for astir 45 days wherever they acquisition an aggravated programme earlier being released.

There is nary certainty that these patients volition not relapse.

While those removed from the streets are overwhelmingly men, immoderate women and children person besides been taken to dedicated rehabilitation centres.

Omar, similar the remainder of the addicts successful the country astatine the centre successful Kabul, is severely emaciated, his brownish garment - provided by the authorities - loosely hanging disconnected him, and his look gaunt.

Sitting connected the borderline of the bed, helium describes the beingness helium erstwhile had.

"One time I was successful Dubai, the adjacent Turkey and sometimes Iran. I travelled the satellite arsenic a formation attendant with Kam Air and would often person VIP guests similar the erstwhile presidents connected the aircraft."

He mislaid his occupation erstwhile Kabul fell. Facing economical hardship and an uncertain future, helium turned to drugs.

When the Taliban were successful powerfulness successful the 1990s, they each but stamped retired poppy cultivation. But the drugs commercialized became a large root of income for them passim their 20-year insurgency.

Now the Taliban accidental they person ordered an extremity to the poppy commercialized and are trying to enforce this policy. But according to the UN, cultivation accrued by 32% successful 2022 compared to 2021.

Meanwhile, Afghanistan's system is connected the brink of collapse, suffering from a nonaccomplishment of planetary support, information challenges, climate-related issues and planetary nutrient inflation.

Since coming to the rehabilitation centre, Omar has go determined to get better.

"I privation to get married, person a household and unrecorded a mean life," helium says. "These doctors are truthful kind. They are trying their champion to assistance us."

For the doctors astatine the centre, this is simply a rudimentary operation. The Taliban proceed to present much radical and the unit are struggling to find abstraction for them.

"We request help. The planetary assemblage near and chopped disconnected their assistance. But our problems person not gone away," 1 doc tells me.

"There are galore professionals among this group. Smart, educated radical who erstwhile had bully lives. But the difficulties successful our society, the poorness and deficiency of jobs mean they were looking for an escape."

Despite the overcrowding and deficiency of resources, the doctors stay committed to doing everything they tin to assistance these addicts.

"There is nary certainty that these patients won't relapse erstwhile they leave. But we request to support trying and astir importantly, we request to springiness them anticipation for the future. Right now, determination is none."