Population growth overwhelms Kabul

Habib Gul and Rahman Gul stand among the rubbish they helped their father, Sher Gul, to collect.

KABUL // In an area of town where warlords drive their SUVs at high speed past street children, postcards are sold that show the Afghan capital as it once was. The roads were clean and well paved, buildings stood firm and the river was full of water instead of rubbish. Decades later, it could not be more different. "There is lots of traffic, lots of rubbish and everything is very expensive. But if the people go back to the provinces what can they do when there are no jobs for them?" said Karim Khan, selling vegetables from a street stall. "I wake up at 4am, pray, then come here to start work at 5am. Until 9pm I am working and I make just [Dh7.2]." Kabul, a city designed for one million people, is now home to around five times that number. Conflict, poverty and a fleeting sense of optimism have caused the population to boom in recent years and the impact has been overwhelming. From the provision of basic services like housing and electricity to social problems such as unemployment and crime, Kabul is unable to cope. Sher Gul escaped Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation, as Kabul slowly descended into the endless war that would ultimately tear it apart. He went to Pakistan and earned a living digging wells, but returned in 2003 believing that his young family had a future here.

"We thought the government would give us a house or land and at the beginning there were lots of jobs available," he said. "Right now there is nothing." Today, Mr Gul survives by collecting rubbish. The paper he finds is burnt in the winter to keep him and his nine children warm. He sells the empty plastic bottles and drink cans he picks up, usually with the help of six of his sons. Breathing life back into Kabul was never going to be easy, the city having been razed to the ground by fighting in the early to mid-1990s and then decimated by international isolation under the Taliban, But according to residents and even the deputy mayor, the capital is in a "crisis situation" largely because of the government's own failures. Throughout the city there are obvious examples of mistakes that have been made, often at the expense of those who can hardly feed themselves. In the district of Shirpur, gaudy mansions have been built where traditional mud-brick homes once stood.

The old residents were kicked out for the development to take place and warlords - some of whom are involved in the drugs trade - now live there, alongside foreign contractors. Kabul Municipality, which is meant to be responsible for the city, acknowledges it had no say in the process. Only a few of the original houses remain and they might not be there for long. Sayed Mahboob has been unemployed for seven years and he is under increasing pressure to leave. "All these people have built castles and now they are telling us we should destroy our homes because they make the area look bad," he said. "Why? Are we not Afghans?" Small tent villages have appeared in other parts of Kabul. Some contain families displaced by fighting in the south and east, others are full of the unemployed who left the countryside and came here in search of work. Yet this is far from the promised land. There is still no regular electricity supply and many homes do not have running water. Security is also deteriorating, with kidnappings and robberies even more of a problem than the ever-present threat of insurgent violence. Huge concrete blast walls surround government buildings and military compounds. Whole streets are blocked off by barriers, causing long traffic jams in the city and infuriating the general public. The street leading to Mehrabuddin Haidari's printing shop has been closed since a suicide bomber attacked the Indian Embassy earlier this summer. With the embassy next door and the ministry of interior nearby, this is one of Kabul's many no-go zones. "Before the explosion our business was very good, now it's down to zero because nobody can come here in their cars," he said. "It's not because of our security, it's just because of the minister's. They don't care about us. How can they keep security when I don't even feel safe in my house?" In the centre of the city, where the rubbish, congestion and growing presence of heavily armed police are all clearly visible, the deputy mayor is willing to admit that people are right to feel angry at the situation. "I think we could have done much more than we have in the last six years, but at the same time some problems are out of our control," said Wahabuddin Sadaat. He said the sudden population boom has created a huge burden on infrastructure, leading to mass unemployment, housing shortages and high crime rates. However, a lack of co-ordination among different government bodies means key issues are still not being tackled as effectively as they should be. "Kabul Municipality has the key to the city, but whether that key is working or not working is another question," Mr Sadaat said. [e-mail]