A Taliban fighter monitors the distribution of food rations in Kabul (Afghanistan), April 30, 2022. EBRAHIM NOROOZI / AP Since their return to power in 2021, the Afghan Taliban say they refuse any compromise on their values in the name of an unshakeable faith in Islam. The success of the fight against the cultivation of poppies used for the manufacture of heroin, of which the country was the world’s leading producer, would be the symbol of this doctrinal purity. The reality diverges a little. After the “strict ban” on its production in April 2022, the poppy harvest, which had fallen drastically in 2023, increased in 2024 by 19%, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). According to the United Nations (UN), Islamist leaders let this happen so as not to alienate the support of part of the rural population unhappy at having lost a large part of their income. Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers In Afghanistan, the Taliban suspend the polio vaccination campaign led by the United Nations Read later The decree of Emir Haibatullah Akhundzada, supreme leader of the Taliban, banning poppy cultivation, had caused the fall, in 2023, the harvest of 95% in the country. At the end of 2024, notes the UNODC, “12,800 hectares” of poppy were cultivated in Afghanistan, almost 20% more than in 2023. The South-West provinces, long the epicenter of this crop, have been supplanted, in 2024, by the North-East, which now concentrates 59% of total production, notably the province of Badakhshan. But the historic stronghold of the Taliban, Helmand province, in the south, recorded an increase of 434%. Clashes between farmers and police The extent of poppy fields in the country is still far from reaching the 232,000 hectares recorded in 2022, but this trend marks a sudden stop. The Taliban did not want to alienate the regions which demonstrated against the eradication policy carried out by their police officers. In May, in Badakhshan, clashes between refractory farmers and members of the anti-narcotics brigades who came to destroy poppy fields left several people dead. “For us,” said a UN agent, contacted in Kabul, “it is less a question of the Taliban’s desire to buy social peace than of their fear of harming their most loyal and long-standing supporters, the Pashtun farmers. . » The significant loss of income, in the absence of alternative solutions, has forced farmers to reduce their food and health expenses, accentuating malnutrition and exposure to increased health risks. Short-term choices were made to the detriment of long-term environmental concerns. Cotton, preferred to less profitable food crops, has emptied underground water reserves. However, water shortages are hitting this country hard, hit by three years of drought in a row and an accelerated decline in water tables. You have 46.47% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
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