8am: Mohammad Masoud Zahidian, the deputy head of Iran’s anti-narcotics headquarters, says that drug smuggling has increased from the country’s soil. Previously, Indian, Russian and Iranian officials have repeatedly expressed concerns about the increase in drug cultivation, production and trafficking in Afghanistan under the rule of Taliban. Click here to read more (external link).
BBC: Afghans are giving their hungry children medicines to sedate them – others have sold their daughters and organs to survive. In the second winter since the Taliban took over and foreign funds were frozen, millions are a step away from famine. “Our children keep crying, and they don’t sleep. We have no food,” Abdul
Tolo News: Local officials in the province of Uruzgan said that families in the province are using opium as medication to treat their children. Health officials in the province acknowledged that some families bring opium-addicted patients to healthcare centers. Children have reportedly died as a result of using opium as medicine, according to authorities. Click
The director of a 1,000-bed rehabilitation center for drug addicts in Kabul says they don’t have enough basic food, medicine, and clothes for patients. Many rehabilitation centers have closed or are struggling to remain open since international charities cut or reduced funding after the Taliban returned to power in August 2021.
Margaret Besheer VOA News November 10, 2022 The United Nations General Assembly called on Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities Thursday to reverse their policies and practices restricting the human rights and fundamental freedoms of Afghan women and girls. “Afghanistan is now the only state in the world that would deny girls their full right to education,” General
Tolo News: Kabul residents said that due to the high prices they cannot buy essential medicine. “Doctors write every prescription for 6,000 or 5,000 Afghani and we are not able financially to buy medicine,” said Basharmal, a Kabul resident. “The price of medicine is high, we cannot buy it but sometimes we buy half,’ said
Khaama: Despite the Taliban government’s ban on drugs, opium cultivation increased by 32% in Afghanistan in 2022, according to a report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Following the announcement of the poppy cultivation ban in April, the report says that opium prices have skyrocketed. Sales of opium increased Afghan farmers’ income
FT: The price of illegal drugs has soared in Afghanistan since the Taliban outlawed the trade in one of the world’s biggest narcotics exporters, according to new data, despite limited evidence that the Islamist militants are enforcing the ban. Opium prices within Afghanistan have risen more than 50 per cent since the Taliban announced the
By Mursaleen Arsala and Abubakar Siddique Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty October 18, 2022 In the spring, the Taliban announced a ban on the cultivation, trafficking, and use of illicit narcotics in Afghanistan, the world’s biggest producer of opium. But as the fall planting season for opium crops begins, the militant group appears to be turning
Daily Beast: “Noorzai isn’t the first drug smuggler the US [had] released; about 50 other drug traffickers were released after the Doha deal, but he is certainly the most prominent,” the official said. “All of them [released prisoners] have gone back to their narcotic business again, as will Noorzai. The Taliban continue to depend on