'forgotten' Poor
Kabul: For all the billions of dollars of foreign aid that flowed into Afghanistan over the past 12 years, Sajeda, the burqa head to feet covered with dust, sobbing that the world has forgotten the poorest of the poor in the north in large troubled part of the country, according to a report by Reuters. A deadly landslide last month exposed the extreme poverty in the remote mountainous region and also highlighted one of the paradoxes of Western aid: the northern region that supported the US invasion of Afghanistan in 01 had much less aid than the south and east, the home of Taliban militants. During the past decade, much of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) International funding has been spent in the bastions of the insurgents as part of the strategy of Washington to win the "hearts and minds" of the local population. "We are the poorest and most wretched of this country and nobody pays attention to us. We are forgotten, "said Sajeda, who lost 12 family members in the landslide that killed hundreds in the northern Badakhshan province.
Time is running out for Tajik and Uzbek people of Badakhshan, the Northern Alliance of the house, which we helped drive force the Taliban from power, to tap international aid. As Western forces wind down operations in Afghanistan, foreign donors are withdrawing.
During the last decade, a disproportionate share of aid from the United States, which makes about two thirds of development aid in Afghanistan, ended in the southern provinces where it was used to achieve political and military objectives. A US official said that between 09-14, more than 70 percent of expenditures from USAID, worth about $ 4.7 billion, went to the south and east.
Badakhshan, once a point on the Silk Road of call, is one of the poorest places on earth. There's just a paved road dotted with potholes, the provincial capital Faizabad to Kunduz, a city three hours west that is connected in Kabul and other parts of the country. Most travel in the province's horse or a donkey. Reconstruction and relief in Badakhshan has mostly declined in Germany, with a handful of small NGOs, who built between other small mini-hydro plants on the slopes of the towering mountains of the Hindu Kush.
"Not only our villagers, but most villagers around Badakhshan are forgotten by the government," says the village chief of Aab Bareek, Haji Azizullah.
Class : Muslim world News
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