Reference :
V-P-AF-E-01965
Date :
2012
Caption :
North of the country, village of Hazar Bagh. Portrait of Qualam. She was a displaced person at Khoja Bahauddin camp in 2001. She is now back home and remembers this hard time and her first encounter with humanitarian workers.
Confidentiality level :
public
Publication restrictions :
reserved users only
Description :
RC RC magazine
Issue 1, 2013, p. 4
“We would have died”
IN MANY WAYS, THE MOVEMENT’S EFFORTS in Afghanistan are emblematic of the gains and challenges faced by humanitarians today, 150 years after the creation of the ICRC. We asked photojournalist Nick Danziger, who has reported on conflict in Afghanistan for three decades, to return and talk to people about what it means ‘to prevent and alleviate human suffering’ on the battlefields and disaster zones of the 21st century.
Like many in the village of Hazar Bagh, in the far north of Afghanistan, Qualam was a farm labourer, working in cotton and wheat fields, when her village came under attack during a Taliban offensive not long before 11 September 2001.
In the panic that gripped the village, Qualam could not find all of her five children. She made the difficult decision to save the sons already with her rather than search for the others in case they should all perish in the bombardment.
“We knew the danger, that it could happen at any time as it had happened to neighbouring villages,” says Qualam. She walked with her children for two days and three nights, their stomachs aching from hunger, their bodies shivering from cold before finding shelter at a camp for the displaced in Khoja Bahauddin.
It was at this camp that Qualam first heard of the Afghanistan Red Crescent, the ICRC and other humanitarian organizations such as Médécins sans Frontières (MSF), which provided blankets, soap, tarpaulins, sugar and food. “Without ICRC’s intervention, we would have died of hunger,” she recalls.
It was also Qualam’s first encounter with organized humanitarian groups and the notion that civilians have rights under international law. “I didn’t know there were laws to protect civilians who are not part of the hostilities,” she says.
“At the camp, through MSF, I followed a course on hygiene. I became a hygiene trainer… Now that I am back home, I do the same thing, it’s my public duty.”
More than 11 years after I first met Qualam at the Khoja Bahauddin refugee camp, the story of her desperate flight on that night in 2001 has haunted me. Meeting her again, most recently a few months ago, reminds us how Dunant’s vision continues to save and change lives.
In fact, many of those helped here in Afghanistan have been empowered with the health, energy and expertise to help others, be they friends, neighbours or strangers. Tens of thousands of people have had their lives changed for the better. They’ve been sheltered and fed, received news from loved ones via Red Cross messages or had their story heard while in detention. They drink clean water or can walk and work more easily due to a prosthetic limb.
But even with all that’s been learned and achieved, the challenges are still daunting. What is now a diverse humanitarian sector does not have all the answers, resources or access it needs to alleviate the underlying poverty and violence. Health and aid workers face threats to their safety and security, humanitarian work is sometimes confused with political aims and, despite the Movement’s global scope, many combatants and civilians have little notion of the ICRC, humanitarian law or the red cross and red crescent emblems. We have come a long way in 150 years, especially in recent decades. But sadly, our story is in many ways similar to what Dunant witnessed on the battlefield at Solferino.
Author: Nick Danziger
Original material :
digital
Resolution :
4032x3024
Orientation :
landscape
Colour/B&W :
colour
