{"id":10546,"date":"2019-03-15T15:23:53","date_gmt":"2019-03-15T13:23:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/?p=10546"},"modified":"2019-03-15T15:26:23","modified_gmt":"2019-03-15T13:26:23","slug":"homes-lost-and-lives-trampled-rural-afghans-urgently-want-peace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/2019\/03\/homes-lost-and-lives-trampled-rural-afghans-urgently-want-peace\/","title":{"rendered":"Homes Lost and Lives Trampled, Rural Afghans Urgently Want Peace"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York Times<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

by Mujib Mashal<\/p>\n

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Sayed Mohammed, whose family has been displaced from their farm and home by fighting, holding his daughter Halima at their shelter in Tirin Kot, Afghanistan.<\/span>Credit<\/span>Credit<\/span>Mujib Mashal\/The New York Times<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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TIRIN KOT, Afghanistan \u2014 When the war engulfing southern Afghanistan reached Sayed Mohammed\u2019s doorstep, he resisted the urge to abandon his home. When Taliban fighters looted his chicken farm, he still refused to leave.<\/p>\n

But the birth of his fifth child, a daughter, changed his mind. Named Halima, she was born amid a raging battle a couple months ago, with explosions shaking the walls of the family farmhouse on the rural outskirts of the city of Tirin Kot.<\/p>\n

The blasts were so intense that Halima\u2019s 4-year-old brother, Saber, developed stress blisters on his lips that began to bleed. Terrified, he crawled inside his father\u2019s shirt to seek refuge.<\/p>\n

Shortly after, Mr. Mohammed took his wife and young children and left with just what they could carry.<\/p>\n

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\u201cShe was born in such circumstances that I don\u2019t wish upon any human,\u201d Mr. Mohammed said of Halima, now wrapped in blankets in the corner of the dark, cold room that they rent. It is only about a 10-minute walk to this room from the family farmhouse, but with the old neighborhood now a battle front, it might as well be a world away.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was lost,\u201d he said of the decision to leave his home and the farm, with 4,500 chickens, that he had taken out large loans to finance. \u201cI didn\u2019t know whether to stay with my suffering wife, or to take these other children to a safer place.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n