Hel(l)mand Camp

periodismohumano

Directed by: Alberto Arce
Photo: Ricardo García Vilanova

Anyone who manages to make it through the Chara-i-Qanbar roundabout in Kabul ends up passing by the large agglomeration of adobe houses on the right hand side. These are presided over by an open-air brick factory, where a number of shoeless children mix and pack clay. It’s impossible not to notice the anomaly. Around 750 families- between 4000 and 5000 people- inhabit this filthy place, otherwise known as “Hel(l)mand Camp.”

Way too visible, the camp is on the side of the road. Are its inhabitants refugees? Does the place look like this because the High Commissioner of the United Nations hasn’t taken responsibility for them?

Two men invite us in. There is a funeral taking place. After the prayer has finished, the story of the camp is told.

- “My name is Jan Mohammad, from Helmand province, Sangin district. Everybody you see here comes from the Helmand and Kandahar provinces. It is not possible to live there anymore. People have left their homes, their land, their businesses..”-Because of the war?- I ask.
- “Yes. Those of us who had crops sold them to pay for our trip to Kabul. The situation in Helmand province is very bad. When a Taliban shoots – or even if they don’t shoot- the Americans start bombing.”
– Do you want to go back?-
– “No. How can we go back under these circumstances? We haven’t lost our minds.”
- How long have you been living here? -
– “For about two and a half years.”

As is generally true when speaking of Afghan culture, it’s practically impossible to get any details. “Peace can only come once the Afghan people unite. If you think only of your own well being and I do the same, nothing will ever get fixed.” When he is asked to speak a little more concisely, he speaks openly -or by ellipsis -of the actors involved in the conflict. “We have faith in God. Karzai and the foreigners do not. Only God can unite the Afghan people again. Islam is the only path. Those who do not accept Islam do not seek peace for this country.”

The children walk ahead shouting, which they do to scare the women away so as to protect the honor of their community. Their homes are nothing more than adobe mounds with plastic used as roofing. It could seem as if these structures had been built with the purpose of hiding the women in the dark back section of each thatched hut. Flies form part of the landscape. Tattered blankets piled high are the only furniture to be seen. There is visible overcrowding everywhere. They way the inhabitants of Helmand camp live is the closest thing imaginable to living with no shelter. They live surrounded by rats and the filth that floats down the streams that separate each ‘house” from the other.

- Do you get help from anyone? -
– “No. Not from the Afghan government, the United Nations, or the International Organizations. Some merchants and businessmen from the surrounding areas give us a little money from time to time. But that’s all.” The 750 displaced families from Helmand and Kandahar who have been living in the middle of Kabul for three years don’t receive any kind of official aid? They are insistent with their answer: “No.”

Anti-photojournalism. The most complex side of the refugees of Afghanistan

One of the men takes a wrinkled photograph out from his pocket. There is a girl in the photo: bloody and lying on a bed.

– “It was the Americans. Do you want to talk to her?”
-Would that be possible? -
- “We’ll bring her to you now.”

After less than ten minutes, a man walks forward holding the little girl by one arm. The only arm she has left. The girl is crying. They forced her to come here, she doesn’t want to speak and, with the same determination that the men have to show us her wound, the little girl fights to cover it up. They ask for money to buy medicine. It is pure staging.

After witnessing the scene, the only dignified way to get out of the situation is to give money to the girl, ask that she leave, and apologize for having made her come as many times as necessary. Later, our translator explains that the most likely thing to have happened after they left us was that the girl was beaten by the men, who held onto the money themselves. There isn’t the shadow of a doubt that this may be true.

The next day, we have an appointment with the doctors who work for the World Health Organization. These self-proclaimed “leaders in the field” see us as foreign donors: a resource in their impoverished state. This is nothing further from the truth about our reason for being there.

The clinic is nothing more than a piece of cloth held up by four sticks. The tension is so thick in the air that it could be cut with a knife. The doctors spend a good while talking with our translator.

- “They aren’t good people” the translator explains, worried.
- Who aren’t? -
- “The men from the camp. The doctors tell us that we shouldn’t be here.. That these men are dangerous.”
We are off to a good start.

Malaria. Typhoid fever, diarrhea. Malnutrition. The lack of cleanliness. The sick speak but do not move. They are rigid. Afraid. The problem here doesn’t come from the scarcity of resources, but rather from a lack of custom. “Their tradition keep them from following the simplest rules about cleanliness. They don’t wash themselves. There is no cleaning. They limit themselves to asking for pills and cough syrup and think that these are enough to cure them. When they were given water filters in the past, they sold them. They protest before the government. They complain before their neighbors and in front of journalists. It’s their way of putting the pressure on. Nobody listens to us.”

“Don’t forget the vitamins for sex”someone says. A surprise indeed. “Every man has two or three wives and often can’t keep up with them. They come to us and ask for what they call “vitamins to get their strength back”” – Viagra? The doctors smile for the first and last time, but don’t answer. They maintain their modesty.
“ If we don’t give them what they want, they threaten and hit us. Do you want us to call a car to come pick you up and get you out of here?”

And the doctors do all this for a 150-dollar salary.

“We have a doctors office at our house in the afternoons. That way we can make it until the end of the month.”

The appropriate place to get the missing side of the story about the displaced people at Helmand Camp is the Office of the High Commissioner of the United Nations for refugees in Kabul. Flowers and garden included. Cafe au lait. “ I never would have let you go there had I realized you work in these matters when we talked on the phone.” – Why not? - “In 2008, a Canadian journalist was kidnapped at that location. Its very dangerous.”[Melissa Jung, 35 years old, was kidnapped for a month and set free only after prisoners were exchanged between the Afghan government and her kidnappers- common delinquents.]

“ Journalists don’t ever come and ask us questions to get the complete story of Helmand camp. It is a place of transition. Very visible, seemingly easy, and in poor condition. The Camp has a long story. Why do you want to look deeper into its past?” He doesn’t stop here, however. “Everything that I’m going to tell you is off the record and you cannot use my name.”

The fine details come out. “We believe that the inhabitants don’t come from where they say they do. They are probably nomads. They abandoned their land years and wars ago, traveled to Pakistan and waited there. When they finally tried to return to their places of origin, these places were either occupied by another clan or simply no longer existed. They felt lost and settled in Kabul. There are a number of reasons- including their accents (we know there are quite a lot of baluches and kouchis among them), the dates they claim combat took place, and the contradicting names they give for their villages- that we know the story they tell is not true.”

The nature of displacement in Afghanistan is complex. There are between 4 and 5 million displaced Afghan people. Are the inhabitants of Helmand Camp refugees? Technically, they aren’t. They refuse to return to their places of origin, and it is impossible to verify where they come from, why it was they fled, or when they did so. Meanwhile, the people of Helmand have taken a stand. They want the government to place them and grant them the right to own property or land where they can settle down: in Kabul. This when nobody knows how it is that these 5000 people manage to support themselves.“Remember, they have a kidnapping in their past and face all sorts of rumors about their relationship with organized crime” the official says.

“Every journalists who is incensed by their poor living takes it upon themselves to shame the Afghan government and the United Nations for not thinking of these people. What they must realize is that the story is much more complicated.”

The only thing that we can be certain is true is that a young girl lost her arm.