Conflicts & War

Taliban expel thousands of Hazaras from their villages in Afghanistan

Kabul, Sep 4 (EFE).- The Taliban have allegedly forced thousands of people from the Hazara community to move out of their villages in central Afghanistan, leaving the persecuted Shia minority homeless and without a source of income.

“Around 720 families are already evicted from two villages from an area between Gizab and Pato,” Ali Juma Tawhidi, a tribal elder from Daikundi province – where the two mentioned districts are located – told EFE.

The displaced Hazaras have settled in makeshift tents and damaged houses in various parts of Daikundi province and are vulnerable to poverty and cold as winter approaches, he said.

The Taliban have also warned Hazara residents of at least eight other villages to leave their homes in the next few days, else “they will be evacuated without the right to complain” or even to take their belongings with them, according to Ahmadi, an elderly Hazara from Pato.

Most of the residents of these villages are farmers whose income depends on the crops they were forced to leave behind following the ultimatum by the Islamist group.

“We are poor people, where should we go? We all depend on these agricultural lands, what we will eat and where we will live after this?” stressed Ahmadi.

“We have been living here for the past several decades. They force us out of our houses and even don’t let us take our belongings, now we don’t know whether this is the justice the Taliban want to apply? They want to eliminate the Shia people, are we not residents of this country? They told us to get lost, or we will eliminate you,” the elder said.

In this regard, the Hazara community has called on the government to act immediately to prevent further forced evacuations of this persecuted minority in Afghanistan.

The village of Kindir has already been completely evacuated by the Hazaras, and evictions were underway in several other areas, Ali Akbar Jamshidi, a former lawmaker of the Daikundi province in the Afghan parliament, told EFE.

“The Hazara people had been living in these villages for the past five decades and turned the deserts and mountain slopes to agricultural land and now we have beautiful villages. Now these farmers are being evacuated from their green villages,” remarked Jamshidi.

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