Avec le soutien de Action contre la Faim et ECHO
http://waitingforhope.org
Près de quarante ans de conflits ont durement éprouvé l’Afghanistan. Malgré les objectifs de stabilisation du pays annoncés par la communauté internationale, la situation sécuritaire ne cesse de se dégrader. L’année 2016 a d’ailleurs été une année particuliè- rement sanglante tandis que 2017 a commencé dans la violence. Les civils ont payé un lourd tribut, de même que les structures de santé et les humanitaires.
Les vagues de violence successives ont provoqué de vastes déplacements de popula- tion, tant à l’intérieur du pays que vers les pays voisins (Iran et Pakistan).
L’année 2016 représente un nouveau record en terme de mouvement de population : plus de 630 000 personnes ont fuit leur village vers des lieux plus sûrs, plus de 560 000 Afghans ont quitté le Pakistan. Poussés à rentrer dans leur pays d’origine après parfois plus de 30 ans d’absence, on estime qu’au total ce sont 5,7 millions de ses Afghans exilés qui sont aujourd’hui de retour et ont de graves difficultés à s’établir, à se loger, à subvenir à leurs besoins et à avoir accès à des services de base. En outre, les fréquentes vagues de sécheresse et des catastrophes naturelles (inondations, glissements de terrain, séismes) rendent le quotidien de millions de familles à travers le pays toujours plus difficile. Les Nations Unies estiment à plus de 250 000 le nombre de personnes affectées par les ca- tastrophes naturelles chaque année, dans les différentes régions d’Afghanistan.
Financé par la Commission européenne (ECHO), le programme ERM (mécanisme de réponse d’urgence) permet à un réseau d’organisations humanitaires actives à travers tout le pays (ACF, ACTED, DRC, DACAAR, PIN, NRC, Première Urgence Internationale, SOLIDARITES INTERNATIONAL) de disposer de suffisamment de ressources (person- nel qualifié, trésorerie, articles non-alimentaires, logements d’urgence, équipements hy- drauliques et sanitaires d’urgence) pour répondre en urgence aux besoins humanitaires des populations touchées par une catastrophe ou un conflit. Les familles les plus vulné- rables reçoivent ainsi une protection spécifique. Depuis janvier 2016, le projet ERM a permis d’aider et de répondre aux besoins de 90 550 personnes à travers le pays.
Pour alerter sur cette crise oubliée la Commission européenne a chargé Action contre la Faim d’organiser une exposition photographique et de réaliser un site Internet dédié permettant de montrer au grand public le difficile quotidien des familles afghanes, leurs besoins et les réponses apportées par les organisations humanitaires. Trois mois de reportage auprès des bénéficiaires du programme ERM ont permis de collecter des photos et des témoignages rares de ces Afghans oubliés, qui survivent tant bien que mal aux quatre coins du pays. Un témoignage intime et pudique qui permet d'entrevoir la réalité quotidienne de ces familles qui font face à un avenir incertain.
Une commande de Action contre la Faim et ECHO, exposée à Paris et à Kaboul, publiée sous forme de catalogue et rassemblée dans un site internet dédié.
Textes et photos Sandra Calligaro - 2017
It was the time of wheat harvest. One of my family children started to fight with another child; I don’t know how they could get a weapon but after that, the family of the other boy came and killed my uncle, two of my cousins and my nephew mother. We gathered dead bodies but could only burry my cousins as my uncle was tied to a tree. Then we just closed the door of our house and leave in the middle of the night; we had not even time to put on our shoes. Our feet were bleeding.
We didn’t know the man that lands us this house. When the car dropped us here, we went straight to this house and knocked at the door. We told the owner that we had no place to go, that we were immigrants and that we would need a shelter for a few days before finding our relatives. It has been now three months that we are here.
Back there, we had a cow. It was not enough to plough as we would have needed a second one. At last we had to sell it to buy a motorcycle, as fetching the water was becoming more and more difficult during the winter.
Before war, we had a good life. Then everything fell apart; we lost all our belongings, our house was burned. Now my children are hungry, and we don’t have anything to give to them. We have to send them fetching water from the river as neighbors don’t want us to use their wells. It is too far from them, maybe on hour or two, I don’t know.
When we came here, we had nothing, except this blanket, which belongs to my daughter who is disabled. She is 15 years old. Two years ago she fell from a wall and from now on she’s lame.
I lost my wife. I lost my wife 5 years ago. She was sick of the appendix. The doctor was so far that we couldn’t take her to see him.
We have 6 children, 2 daughters and 4 sons. Before the age of five, they are fine but then they become sick and they struck with paralysis. Three of our sons have polio and the fourth one has a degenerative disease but we don’t know which one. This is God will.
We borrowed 40 000 Afg to take our sick boy to Pakistan; the doctor asked us to bring him back a second time and to bring all our sons, but we can’t afford it. We will have to do another loan. Our daughters are healthy for the moment.
Knowledge is the goodness of God; if a person doesn’t have knowledge, she can’t know God. Knowledge prevents you to be swallowed up by ignorance, darkness, war and terror. Due to the difficult situation we had to go through, we couldn’t increase and increase our knowledge. But we have highest ambitions for our children; we want them to be doctors, to reach highest positions than ours.
With the 8000 Afghani gave to us, we paid our first loan to the shop where we bought floor. But now, we have no more money to pay the second loan we did for gas, which has been now entirely used to cook. The shopkeeper is now very angry at us.
We borrowed 9000 Afg to buy food and the rent. Now, we have nothing left to eat and my salary as daily worker is not enough for us nine to live as it is only 100 Afg. per day. Plus as there are too many people looking for a job, I’m not able to work every day.
Our children are sick buy when we are taking them to the hospital; we are rejected because we can’t afford it. Our living conditions here are terrible but we can’t go back to our place because of war
I have a lot of pain in my life. My mother and father died 5 years ago, and I had no sister or brother, so I was alone. My husband then died and now I have to take care of 5 children. If I had not gone through this, I would not have started to chew naswar. It helps me to decrease my pain and my burden: to be less sad, I’m chewing tobacco
The children brought these pictures home because they like it; as we could take nothing when we left our house, we’re putting these pictures on the wall. They are parliamentarian candidates. But at last, they will do nothing for us. Our neighbor even if I don’t know him and that he doesn’t know me and has no reason to help us, will do more than these candidates. Our neighbor is better than politics.
