As fighting picks up in parts of Afghanistan, the constant problem of internally displaced persons grows. In this case, the fighting in Kandahar is threatening to overwhelm the provincial capital, which is expected to absorb some 35,000 new residents in tent cities.
This is hardly a new problem for the province, which has been a center for decades of war in Afghanistan. The real problem is that they’re still unready to handle big influxes of people, with local officials saying they were ready to provide food for 2,000 families and had 10,000 more families show up.
Officials are predicting a humanitarian crisis if they don’t get more support on a national level, and since that rarely happens in Afghanistan, this looks to be just the latest in a long line of crises.
The hope would be that the long-anticipated ceasefire happens soon and allows everyone to return home. In the meantime, however, civilians will be stuck muddling through the same war they’ve dealt with for 19 years.
Kandahar is the heartland of the country’s largest ethnic group, the Pashtuns. It is also the spiritual home of the Taliban and is considered strategically important because of its international airport, its agricultural and industrial output and its position as one of the country’s main trading hubs. Currently the US has been emptying out its major “little America” airfield in Kandahar as the US force drawdown continues.