Chaos in the streets – Demonstrators clashed with Taliban forces
Incidents with deaths broke out yesterday Thursday (9/5) in Nangarhar province, in eastern Afghanistan, during demonstrations citizens who were trying to prevent the destruction of their arbitrary homes.
Member of the Taliban“he was killed during the protests” of people belonging to the Kuchi ethnic group on a road leading from Jalalabad, the provincial capital, to the border with Pakistan, an intelligence official in Torkham, on the border, told AFP.
“People who had (illegally) occupied land were also killed,” Arafat Muhajer said, without elaborating.
The Kuchi are a minority of Pashtun nomads, many of whom have settled permanently in some areas.
After clashes with Taliban forces, protesters “blocked the road from Jalalabad to Torham”
strong>, the official clarified, adding that a building of the customs service is being erected in the area.
“Residents had been asked to leave lands belonging to the state”, he explained, but instead they “caused chaos”.
Demonstrations are a rare phenomenon if anything in the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, as the country is called by the Taliban regime, which regained power in Kabul in August 2021.
Jamil Katwal, a resident of the wider area. , told AFP that, according to people who allegedly occupied fields but said they had building permits in hand, “at least three people were killed and others injured.”
“If the issue is not resolved issue, the demonstrations will continue,” one of the participants in the mobilization emphasized for his part.
At the end of last week, incidents broke out with two deaths in the province of Badakhshan: the victims were farmers who allegedly resisted Taliban drug enforcement teams, who went there to enforce the eradication of poppy crops, the raw material in the process of making opium and heroin.
The crops were outlawed in April 2022, by order of the supreme leader of the Taliban.
