Afghan returnees struggle after earthquake

Noorgal, Kunar, Afghanistan – Four months ago, Nawab Din returned to his native village of Wagh, above in the mountains of the province of East Kunar in Afghanistan, after eight years as a refugee in Pakistan.

Today, he lives in a tent on his own agricultural land. His house was destroyed almost three weeks ago by the earthquake This broke the lives of thousands of others in this region.

“We are now living in tent camps,” said the 55 -year -old farmer, speaking in the boutique of his cousin in the neighboring village of Noorgal. “Our houses were old, and none were left standing … They were all destroyed by large rocks falling from the mountain during the earthquake.”

DIN’s struggle captures double disaster in the face of a large number of Afghans. It has been part of more than four million people who have returned from Iran and Pakistan since September 2023, according to the International Organization for Migration (OIM).

The earthquake of August 31 killed around 2,200 people and destroyed more than 5,000 houses, aggravating a generalized economic crisis.

“We have lost everything we have worked in Pakistan, and now we have lost everything here,” adds Din.

Until four months ago, he lived in Daska, a city in the Pakistan Siackot district, for eight years after fled his village in Afghanistan when the ISIS fighters (ISIS) told him to join them or leave.

“I refused to join ISIL and I was forced to migrate to Pakistan,” he explains.

Its exile has ended suddenly this year while the Pakistani government continues its country nationally Repression of undocumented foreign nationals.

He describes how the Pakistani police went down to his house, taking him and his family in a camp to be treated for expulsion. “I came back from Pakistan because we were told that our time was over and we had to leave,” he said.

“We had to spend two nights at the Torkham border crossing until we are recorded by the Afghan authorities, before we could return to our village.”

This struggle is resolved through Kunar. About 12 km from Noorgal, in the village of Barabat, Sadat Khan, 58, is sitting next to the rubble of the house he had rented until the earthquake strikes.

Khan voluntarily returned from Pakistan when his health failed and he could no longer find a job to support his wife and seven children. Now the earthquake has taken the little left.

“I was also poor in Pakistan. I was the only one to work and my whole family depended on me, “he told Al Jazeera. “We don’t know where the next meal will come from. There is no work here. And I have problems with my lungs. I find it hard to breathe if I make more efforts. ”

He says that his request to the local authorities for a tent for his family has so far remained unanswered.

“I went to see the authorities to ask for a tent to install here,” he says. “We didn’t receive anything, so I asked someone to give me a room for a while, for my children. My uncle had mercy on me and let me stay in a room in his house, now that the Winter arrives. “”

A crisis of many

The earthquake is only the most visible crises faced with Iran and Pakistan.

“Our land is sterile and we have neither stream nor river near the village,” explains Din. “Our agriculture and our life depend entirely on precipitation, and we have not seen much in recent times. Other people wonder how we can live there with such a severe water shortage. ”

Dr. Farida Safi, a nutritionist working in a field hospital created by Islamic Relief in Diwa Gul Valley after the earthquake, says that malnutrition becomes a major problem.

“Most of the people affected by the earthquake that arrives at us have a food deficiency, mainly due to poor diet and the appropriate lack of nutrition to which they had access to their village,” she explains. “We must deal with many children of malnutrition.”

Kunar governor Mawlawi Qudratullah told Al Jazeera that the Kunar authorities had started to build a new city that would include 382 residential plots, according to the plan.

This initiative in the Khas Kunar district is one of the national programs led by the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing, with the aim of providing permanent housing to Afghan repatriates. However, it is not known how long it will take to build these new houses or if agricultural land will also be given to returnees.

“It will be for people who have no land or house in this province,” said Qudratullah. “And this project has already started, separated from the crisis response to the earthquake.”

But for those who live in or next to the ruins of their old houses, such promises feel distant. Back in Noorgal, Nawab Din is consumed by the immediate fear of the replicas of the earthquake and the uncertainty of what comes next.

“I do not know if the government will move us into the plains or if it will help us to rebuild,” he says, the heavy voice of exhaustion. “But I fear that we are forced to continue living in a camp, even if the aftershocks continue to strike, sometimes so powerful that the tents tremble.”