Dozens of families of Afghan National Police (ANP) officers eke out a living each month and due to poverty are forced to live in caves around the Buddha statues in central Bamiyan province.
These families deal with untold hardships on a daily basis and have their homes in the mountainside as the salaries paid to the local ANP officers is not enough to cover daily expenses, they told TOLOnews on Wednesday.
Khadija, 54, is a Bamiyan resident who lives with her three children in one such cave.
She said her first husband was killed by the Taliban a few years ago. She then remarried – to a man who is serving in the ANP.
According to her, they have lived in the cave for almost ten years.
“We do not even have a proper area to take a bath; we live here throughout the year and face a lot of problems,” she said.
Another woman, Halima, also lives in a nearby cave. The 55-year-old mother said her family has lived there for thirty years.
Her older son is a drug addict and the younger one serves in the ANP, she said. He is her family’s only breadwinner.
“The Taliban had asked the local residents to leave their homes and evacuate the area. I was not here at that time, but when I returned I saw people around my house and they told me that the Taliban had shot my husband in the head,” said Halima.
Salman, 14, is Halima’s son, he is at school and is in class seven.
“We cannot come out of here during the winter when it snows; stones also fall from the top of the hill; if we go out, we get hit,” Salman said.
Government pays 8,000 Afs a month to ANP soldiers in Bamiyan. However, the ministry of interior has said that government plans to build special townships for ANP officers.
“A contract has been signed with China on the basis of which thousands of apartments will be built for ANP officers and security personnel,” said Sediq Sediqqi spokesman for the ministry of interior.
Hundreds of Bamiyan residents work in the agriculture sector in the province however they are dealing with high levels of unemployment and poverty. www.tolonews.com/en/afghanistan/26456-anp-officers-forced-to-live-in-bamiyans-caves-
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