‘Afghan opium crops rise as Taleban gains ground’

Aid agencies struggle to assist refugees

VIENNA, Oct 23, (Agencies): The cultivation of opium poppy in Afghanistan, the world’s main source of heroin, has risen to its third-highest level in more than 20 years, the United Nations confirmed on Sunday, as the Taleban insurgency gains ground.

In the key findings of its annual Afghanistan opium survey, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said the total area of land devoted to poppy cultivation had risen 10 percent in 2016 to 201,000 hectares (497,000 acres).

“The survey shows a worrying reversal in efforts to combat the persistent problem of illicit drugs and their impact on development, health and security,” UNODC Executive Director Yury Fedotov said in a statement.

The government’s loosening grip on security in many areas contributed to a collapse in poppy eradication efforts, a method championed by the United States after it led an invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 when the country was under Taleban rule.

“Eradication has dropped precipitously to 355 hectares — a fall of some 91 percent,” Fedotov said. The report said cultivation was also spreading to new areas, as the number of poppy-free provinces fell to 13 from 14 out of a total of 34.

The report confirmed a statement by Fedotov earlier this month that the area under cultivation in 2016 had exceeded 200,000 hectares, putting it in the top three years since the UNODC began providing estimates in 1994.

Fedotov’s statement on Oct 4 was made at a conference in Brussels at which world powers raised $15 billion to fund Afghanistan over the next four years. Taleban successes on the battlefield have exposed the defensive limits of Afghanistan’s NATO-trained armed forces, which are supposed to number 350,000 personnel but which have been heavily depleted by casualties and desertion. “Strong increases (in cultivation) were observed in the northern region and in Badghis province where the security situation has deteriorated since 2015,” the UNODC said. The western region, which includes Badghis, has the second-biggest area under cultivation after the southern region.

Fedotov

Estimate

The UNODC added, however, that its yield estimate was less reliable than that of the area under cultivation.

“There are some limitations in these estimates since the yield survey was not implemented in all main cultivating provinces for security reasons,” it said. “For the provinces not covered, the regional average was used.”

“I believe with the existing equipment, facilities and civilian task force, we cannot fight the cultivation of poppy in insecure areas,” said Baz Mohammad Ahmadi, deputy minister of interior for counter-narcotics. “The challenges of deteriorating security in different parts of the country took away the opportunities to destroy poppy farms.”

Eradication efforts appeared to have collapsed. A total of 355 hectares of poppy eradication was carried out this year, a 91 percent plunge from 2015.

“In 2016, farmers’ resistance against poppy eradication operations was occasionally expressed through direct attacks on eradication teams,” the UN report said.

“No eradication took place in the provinces with high levels of opium poppy cultivation due to the extremely poor security situation in those areas and logistical/financial challenges to organise the eradication teams on time.” Afghanistan saw a drop in opium cultivation last year for the first time since 2009, a UN report said, citing drought as a key reason for the decline. But that was seen as a temporary blip.

Poppy farmers in Afghanistan are often taxed by the Taleban, who use the cash to help fund their insurgency against government and NATO forces.

“Most of the conflicts in Afghanistan are financed by income from poppy. Anywhere you see poppy in Afghanistan you see fighting there,” said Ahmadi.

International donors have splurged billions of dollars on counter-narcotics efforts in Afghanistan over the past decade, including efforts to encourage farmers to switch to other cash crops such as saffron. But those efforts have shown little results.

Addiction levels have also risen sharply — from almost nothing under the 1996-2001 Taleban regime — giving rise to a new generation of addicts since the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan.

“We explain to the international community that now is the time to increase support for counter-narcotics in Afghanistan,” said UNODC regional chief Andrey Avetisyan.

TORKHAM:

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Perched on top of lumbering trucks overflowing with all their possessions, Afghan families are streaming back to their home country at unprecedented rates, leaving international organisations scrambling to provide aid as winter approaches.

The flow of returnees from neighbouring Iran and Pakistan this year, estimated by the United Nations to number more than half a million, is straining the capacity of the government and aid agencies, even as violence uproots more Afghans around the country.

At Torkham, the busiest border crossing between Afghanistan and Pakistan, nearly 170,000 Afghans have returned this year, according to the UN, many of them citing harassment by Pakistani authorities as relations between the two countries have deteriorated.

Islamabad has stepped up pressure to send people back and numbers have risen sharply in recent months as Afghan-Indian relations strengthened and those between India and Pakistan soured. Lines of colourfully decorated trucks pass through the border gate at Torkham, navigating the mountainous passes with returning refugees clinging to piles of household goods, sometimes with a family cow nearly buried in the back. A cluster of white tents only a few hundred meters from the border marks the first facility operated by the UN, the Afghan government, and other aid agencies to provide aid for returnees before they look for a home in a country many have not seen in years.

Here, and at other sites nearby, families are offered medical checkups, bundles of basic supplies and food.

In September, the UN issued an appeal for millions of dollars of emergency funding to help returning refugees and other internally displaced people in Afghanistan, but so far the fundraising has yet to reach its goal, said Mark Bowden, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Afghanistan.

“Out of the $150 million that we requested, we’ve only got $48 million so far, and our costs are certainly going to be running quite high over the winter period,” he told Reuters.

While the winter is usually mild in the area of Nangarhar province where many returning refugees have at least temporarily settled, many others have headed further west to Kabul, where freezing temperatures may take a toll on anyone unable to find accommodation, Bowden said.

Escalating friction between Afghanistan and Pakistan flared into brief clashes at the Torkham border crossing in June, the violence symptomatic of a wider decline in relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan that has prompted political and sometimes military confrontations.