タリバンの攻撃より危機的　干ばつ広がるアフガニスタン

【バーラーモルガーブＡＦＰ＝時事】アフガニスタン辺境のバーラーモルガーブでは、あちこちの畑がからからに乾燥し、干ばつが広がっている。この地域で恐れられているのは、電撃的な攻勢で政権を掌握したイスラム主義組織タリバンよりも気候変動だ。（写真はアフガニスタン・バドギス州バーラーモルガーブの村で泥れんがの家の入り口に立つ家族）
　「最後に雨が降ったのは去年です。それも大した量ではありませんでした」。同地域にあるハジラシドカーン村の首長、ムラー・ファテフ氏は言う。
　西部バドギス州のこの一角では、緩やかな丘陵がどこまでも広がり、点在する泥れんがの家で暮らす人々は必死に命をつないでいる。仏援助団体「ＡＣＴＥＤ」によると、州の人口６０万人のうち９０％は畜産か農業で生計を立てている。
　「羊を売って食料を買いました。それ以外の羊は水不足で死んでしまいました」とファテフ氏は語った。前回、干ばつに見舞われた２０１８年には羊を３００頭飼っていたが、今回の日照りで２０頭にまで減ったという。
　村に水が必要になると、ファテフ氏は、少年や大人の男性にロバで丸一日かけて水をくみに行かせる。今年は、この丘陵地帯で若い羊飼い２人が水不足により命を落とした。
　水不足は、家族の絆にも打撃を与えている。
　学校も診療所もないハジラシドカーン村では、今年に入ってから、食べ物を買う金銭を工面するために２０世帯が幼い娘を売って結婚させた。
　７人の子どもを持つビビ・イェレさんは、金銭と引き換えに１５歳の娘を結婚させた。じきに７歳の娘も同じ運命をたどるだろう。干ばつが続けば、今は２歳と５歳の娘たちも、後に続くことになるとイェレさんは言う。
　ドイツの環境シンクタンク、ジャーマンウオッチの調査では、二酸化炭素（ＣＯ２）などの温室効果ガス排出によって気候変動の影響を最も受けている国のランキングでアフガニスタンは６位になっている。
　世界銀行のデータによると、アフガニスタンでは国民１人当たりの年間ＣＯ２排出量は０．２トン。同じデータで米国の平均は１５トンだ。
　国連機関は１０月２５日、アフガニスタンではこの冬、２２００万人以上が「深刻な食糧不足」に陥るおそれがあると発表。情勢が不安定な同国は、世界でも最悪レベルの人道的な危機に直面すると警告した。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】

〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2021/11/17-12:58）

Drought stalks the parched fields around the remote Afghan district of Bala Murghab, where climate change is proving a deadlier foe than the country's recent conflicts.
As the world watched the Taliban wage a stunning offensive that ended in the rapid collapse of the country's western-backed government, a longer-term crisis was building.
In desperate attempts to feed their families, herders have been forced to sell their livestock, farmers to flee their villages and parents to sell their daughters into marriage at ever younger ages.
The last time I saw rain was last year, and there wasn't much, Mullah Fateh, head of the Haji Rashid Khan village in Bala Murghab.
Communities cling to life in small clusters of mud-brick homes among an endless ocean of rolling brown hills in this corner of Badghis province -- where 90 percent of the 600,000-strong population live off livestock or fields, according to humanitarian agency ACTED.
We sold sheep to buy food, others died of thirst, Fateh told AFP.
When the first of two recent droughts hit in 2018, he had 300 sheep, but as the latest dry spell bites, he's down to 20.
On Monday, UN agencies said more than 22 million Afghans will suffer acute food insecurity this winter, warning the unstable country faces one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.
Aid-dependent Afghanistan, which has spent decades trapped in cycles of war, has borne the sixth hardest blow from climate change, driven by greenhouse emissions such as CO2, according to a study by environmental group Germanwatch.
An Afghan lifestyle causes 0.2 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year, compared to 15 from the average American, World Bank figures show.
As predicted, one of the devastating effects has been a drop in rainfall in northern Afghanistan.
- Rise in child marriage -
When Mullah Fateh needs to fetch water, he sends young boys and men on a day-long trip with a donkey. This year, he said, two young shepherds died of thirst in the hills.
The thirst attacks not just the body, but family bonds.
This year 20 families in Haji Rashid Khan village, which has no school and no clinic, sold their very young daughters into marriage, to raise money for food.
The rest of the children were hungry and thirsty, explained Bibi Yeleh, a mother of seven whose 15-year-old daughter is already married and whose seven-year-old will soon follow.
If the drought continues, she said, a two and a five-year-old will be next, to be handed over to the groom's family when they are older.
Around 45 of roughly 165 families in the village and tens of thousands across the province have been displaced this year into miserable camps on the outskirts of larger towns.
Even there, food is hard to come by, and some take desperate risks.
Families stay, but the men need to go to look for work in Iran or beyond, some die on the road, says Musanmill Abdullah, 28, who lives with his family in another Badghis village.
The community is named after his father, Haji Jamal, and Abdullah is a member of the Taliban, the movement which should be celebrating its victory in the civil war.
But military and political success in Kabul has done little to help Badghis.
The fields are ruined, the animals have nothing. Over the past two years, six people died of hunger, the elder man, Haji Jamal, said.
The jerry cans we use to gather water have worn through and we can't afford to replace them.
Neighbour Lal Bibi said as desperation grows, the women and children are alone, and in danger.
- Aid flow disrupted -
Few of the local people have heard of climate change, but the UN report warned that annual droughts in several Afghan regions will probably become the norm by 2030.
The Taliban has not yet been recognised by foreign governments and has been frozen out of Afghanistan's financial reserves, held mainly in the US, with the flow of aid also disrupted.
Regional representatives of the new Taliban government said there is little they can do.
The Emirate hasn't got a lot of money. Our plans are linked to the international community, admitted Abdul Hakim Haghyar of the Badghis province refugees office.
Some international NGOs are still operating and foreign governments have promised humanitarian aid if it can be routed to the people -- but the Taliban remain under sanctions.
In the camps for displaced farmers, matters have become desperate. When nine-year-old Bashir Ahmad's father sold his last livestock, the young boy got a job scavenging for discarded cans and bottles.
Among the rubbish, he found an unexploded munition. It detonated and he lost two fingers on one hand, three on another. Now he lies by his dad, his hands in bandages, a new burden to bear.