They wake up in the mornings to find another family gone. Half of one village, the entirety of the next have left in the years since the water dried up — in search of work, food, any means of survival. Those who stay pick the abandoned houses and burn the pieces for firewood.
They speak of the lush vegetation that once blessed this corner of southwestern Afghanistan. Now, it’s dry as far as the eye can see. Boats sit on bone-dry sandbanks. This paltry water that drips from deep beneath the arid earth is salty, cracking their hands and streaking their clothes.
Several years of punishing drought have displaced entire regions of Afghanistan, one of the nations most vulnerable to climate change, leaving millions of children malnourished and plunging already poor families into deeper despair. And there is no relief in sight.
In Noor Ali’s village in Chakhansur district, near the border with Iran, four families remain out of the 40 that once lived there. Mr Ali, a 42-year-old father of eight who grew melons and wheat in addition to raising cattle, goats and sheep, is too poor to leave. His family lives on a dwindling 440-pound bag of flour bought on credit.
“I have no choice. I am waiting for God,” he said. “I hope water comes.”
Desperation in rural areas, where the majority of Afghanistan’s population lives, has forced families into untenable cycles of debt.
Rahmatullah Anwari, 30, who used to grow wheat dependent on rain, left his home in Badghis province in the north of the country for a camp that has sprung up on the outskirts of Herat, the capital of a neighboring province. He borrowed money to feed his family of eight and pay for his father’s medical treatment. One of the villagers who had lent him money asked for his 8-year-old daughter in exchange for part of the loan.
“I have a hole in my heart when I think about them coming and taking my daughter,” she said.
Mohammed Khan Musazai, 40, had bought cattle on credit, but they were swept away by a flood – when it rains, it comes irregularly and has caused devastating floods. His lenders took his land and also wanted his daughter, who was only 4 years old at the time.
Nazdana, a 25-year-old who is one of his two wives and is the girl’s mother, offered to sell her own kidney – an illegal practice that has become so widespread that some refer to the Herat camp as the “one-kidney village ».
She has a fresh scar on her stomach from the kidney extraction, but the family’s debt is still only half paid.
“They asked me for this daughter and I’m not going to give it to her,” he said. “My daughter is still very young. He still has many hopes and dreams to fulfill.”
A few years ago, 30-year-old Khanjar Kuchai was thinking about going back to school or becoming a shepherd. He served in Afghanistan’s special forces, fighting alongside NATO troops. Now, he counts survival every day – on this day, he was salvaging wood from a relative’s abandoned house.
“Everyone left for Iran because there is no water,” he said. “No one thought that this water could dry up. It’s been two years like this.”
At Zooradin High School in Chakhansur, where winds blow through empty window frames, there has been no running water in the two years since the well dried up. Students regularly fall ill from poor hygiene. The lack of rain, aid groups say, creates perfect conditions for water-borne diseases such as cholera.
Mondo, a mother from Badghis who gave only her first name, lost two of her children in the drought. She miscarried one child and lost another in just 3 months because the family had almost nothing to eat.
Her 9 month old is always hungry but has not been able to produce milk for some time. The large plots of land where her family once grew abundant wheat, and the occasional poppy for opium, are long gone.
“All day we wait for something to eat,” he said. Around her in a brightly colored free clinic run by Doctors Without Borders were other mothers holding weak, hungry babies.
With three-quarters of the country’s 34 provinces facing severe or catastrophic drought conditions, few corners of the country are untouched by disaster.
In Jowzjan province in northern Afghanistan, some with solar panels have drilled even deeper wells with electricity and are now growing cotton, which can yield higher profits than other crops. But cotton consumes even more water.
“The Taliban came and the drought came with them,” said Ghulam Nabi, 60, who recently grew cotton.
Even after years of drought, many speak as if they can still vividly see their land as it once was—green and bountiful, full of melons and cumin and wheat, river birds flying overhead as fishing boats plied the waterways.
With little help from Taliban authorities and international aid falling short, some say all they can do is trust that the water will eventually return.
“We have these memories of these places being completely green,” says Suhrab Kashani, 29, a school principal. “We spend the days and nights until the water comes.”
This work was supported by the National Geographic Society.
