By Freshta Ghani and Najib*
It’s the sixth night that Farida and her family are spending under a tent. She’s unable to close her eyes as a fierce wind shakes the tent, which contains just a nylon carpet and a thin mattress, tucked into a corner. Farida, 35, tries to hold back tears but they fall uncontrolled. Her throat choked with emotion as she realizes that, other than her husband and one son, nothing remains of their former life.
Farida, her husband, and four young children lived in a large home with her extended family, including her father and uncles and their families in the Jalrez district of Maidan Wardak province. In total, 62 relatives lived together. Then, on the night of July 23, 2023, the rains that had devastated parts of Afghanistan, destroyed her home and her family.
That night, the sound of roaring water woke Farida at about 2:00 a.m. She went to the roof, saw a flood angrily rushing toward their house and sounded the alarm, shouting loudly, “Get up! The flood, the flood is coming!” Farida, her 4-year-old daughter, and her 14-year-old daughter grabbed their one-year-old brother and tried to get to the upper part of the house where Farida’s husband and other son were sleeping, but the waters swept away all three of her children. “It took my eldest daughter to the basement, and she died there; It took my two other children to the neighbour’s house, and they lost their lives there. I clung to a wall, and my husband pulled me up to the top floor with his turban,” she recounts. “We went up to the roof of the house; the flood did not reach there.”
In the morning, after the floods stopped, Farida and her husband, who is her paternal cousin, and their surviving son searched for survivors and the bodies of their relatives. “They pulled the bodies from the mud and lined them up; we who survived were both physically injured and emotionally wounded.” They discovered that Farida’s father, brothers, and two uncles, as well as her husband’s brothers and their wives and children had been killed by the flood. In total, 23 close members of Farida’s family died that night. She was so overcome with grief that she could not speak properly. Farida and her husband say that they do not know whether to cry for their lost children or the rest of their family.
As well as the human toll, their belongings were destroyed. Though some foreign and domestic non-governmental organizations helped with basic needs, they relied on neighbours, who gave them clothes and carpets. They now live in tents that lack essential items like dishes or clean water. Farida and four other women who spoke with Zan Times say their children are still sick, and they themselves cannot move properly due to the injuries they sustained.
Jalrez, the district where Farida and her family live, suffered the most casualties in the recent floods that hit Maidan Wardak province. So far, 4,000 individuals from 500 families in Jalrez, Chak, Jeghatu, and Maidan Shahr have been displaced while at least 34 have been killed and another 26 injured.
Many regions of Jalrez district have been hard hit. When the floods reached the Sarsangchal area of the district, Shukriya, a mother of eight, was woken by her father sounding an alarm. “We ran in every direction,” she recounts to Zan Times. “We ran towards the roof, and the flood took my father. At first, I could hear him calling for help, but then his voice went silent. The apocalypse had come upon us.” In the end, her father, mother, brother, and one of her sons died in the flood.
With her husband working in Iran as a day labourer and unable to find a suitable local place for her children, she sent them to relatives in Kabul. Now, she and her surviving family members live in a tent. They worry about their destroyed homes and lives. “We have no house, no water, no money, no clothes, we’ve been here for six nights, sleeping under this tent,” Shukriya explains.
Simagul says that the floods have so devastated their area of Jalrez district that the land where their house stood is unrecognizable and in ruins. Simagul, 70, says her daughter and two grandchildren were swept away: “My daughter ran to save her children, but the flood took all three of them. Hours later, we were informed about where my daughter had been trapped in a tree, her clothes torn. My sons went and saved her.” Simagul’s two grandchildren died.
Now, like thousands of other displaced people, Simagul and her family live in tents. Though the Taliban and some NGOs have provided minor assistance, she hopes they will provide more: “We had neither clothes nor shoes. If the NGOs gave us biscuits or something, we ate, otherwise, we prayed to God. They distributed boots for the children yesterday, but I want my house to be restored so we can return to our lives. How long will we be under this tent?”
Their financial situation is dire. In addition to flood-related injuries among her relations, Simagul’s daughter-in-law is in a hospital in Kabul. “Her medical expenses are very high. We do not have the ability to rebuild our lives,” Simagul says.
The floods have not been contained to just Maidan Wardak province. The Ministry of State for Disaster Management in the Taliban government had already announced that more than 100 people had been killed or injured in floods. Ministry spokesman Shafiullah Rahimi briefed the media: “From July 20 to July 24, in 14 provinces of the country, unfortunately, 48 have been martyred, 58 injured, and 1,003 houses have been completely destroyed by the floods; 676 livestock have been lost, and over 7,992 hectares of agricultural land and dozens of hectares of orchards have been destroyed.”
Farida hopes that the government will provide meaningful help, not just hand out a few loaves of bread and bottles of water, which happened after previous floods: “If someone wants to help, give us cash so that we can rebuild shelter for ourselves.”
*Najib is the pseudonym of a freelance journalist in Afghanistan.
