It’s going to be one hot summer here in Farah; a statement that has surprisingly little to do with the weather forecast or barbeques in the park. I’m no betrayer of social postcard conventions though, so here goes: the past 5 days have been insanely hot (loving it), the button for shadow on the remote control does not work anymore and thanks to non-stop sandstorms I now know what it feels like to be a listed building undergoing grime or graffiti removal. (Picture next to blog is a small part of the security measures just off my balcony, by the way)
No, it is going to be a “very hot” summer as in not “the cold war”. We have seen the violence temperature rising the last weeks and the last couple of days have already shown an increase of very violent incidents. The overall verdict is that the province of Farah will increasingly become a battleground these summer-months. As I may have mentioned before, Farah is geographically located between the province of Helmand to the east and Iran to the west. It also serves as a corridor to the “withdraw-province” of the Taliban in the north-west and has its fair share of home-grown enthusiasm for the bearded variant of government.
Fighting in the southern provinces has been fierce for some time now and the British are going to add some major actions against the Taliban in Helmand in a couple of days / weeks, which quite probably means a very steady stream of Taliban withdrawing to, or hiding-out in my province…albeit not in a very quiet fashion. Added to that are the fact that the poppy-harvest has been dismal for many, which means that the coffers will need to be filled by kidnapping and the host of new recruits for ‘holy war’ that enter via the extremely porous border with Iran. A recurring theme in conversations with the different security guys is the amount of non-afghan ‘elements’ out-and-about.
This “very hot” forecast has obvious implications for my team’s ability to move around and be seen accompanied by an international or with materials that bear our organization’s logo: two of my field staff have already been kidnapped in the past year and I have no desire for that to happen again. Another implication, however, lies in the nature of our work. We specifically assist civilians who have found themselves, their loved-ones or property, caught in the fighting between the Taliban (and other Anti Government Entities) and the international forces; a type of incident that will very likely become more prevalent this summer. This means that we are now trying to finalize and close as many old or ongoing cases as possible in order to be ready to take on new ones. It’s not exactly a contingency either; it’s part of ongoing planning.
This summer will also include a significant part of the fasting month of Ramadan during the hottest weeks (temperature-wise) of August, which doesn’t bode well either: most of the people I know tend to get a bit testy when they are tired, parched and hungry.
