Stories from Afghanistan and India
It is a warm spring afternoon in Herat Province in western Afghanistan. The winter was unseasonably short, and Mohammad Salehi is concerned that might have affected the sun-loving crops. Salehi closely inspects each deep-orange strand in the palm of his hand. […]
MOHAMMAD RAHMANI IS NOT a Covid-19 denier. He wears a mask and practices social distancing. But the 24-year-old software engineer from Kabul, Afghanistan is deeply skeptical of Covid-19 vaccines. Online videos — created in Afghanistan and neighboring countries, then uploaded on […]
ON THE NIGHT OF April 23, Samridhi Diwan and her father drove around New Delhi, India’s capital city, from one hospital to another, searching for a facility that would admit Diwan’s mother, who was infected with SARS-CoV-2 and needed immediate medical […]
Gul Meena Hotak was on her regular rounds, going door-to-door giving polio vaccinations in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, when she heard gunshots. The 22-year-old’s immediate concern was for the safety of her friend Negina and other colleagues nearby. […]
AREFA JOHARI WAS 7 years old when she was taken by her mother to a decrepit building in the back alleys of Bhendi Bazaar, an old market area in Mumbai. The overcrowded bazaar is largely populated by members of the Dawoodi […]
At first glance, the decrepit building hardly registers as a historic structure. The peach paint on the exteriors has cracked with age. The concrete patterns on the walls have long crumbled; all that remains is covered in grime. Set in […]
It was just after 7am when the car carrying Colonel Saba Sahar, one of Afghanistan’s most senior female police officers, came under fire from armed insurgents. In the back seat, Sahar’s four-year-old daughter began screaming as bullets shattered the windscreen […]
WHEN SAIDGUL WAS around 6 months old this past March, his parents decided to take him to Herat, a city about 80 miles from their hometown in Shindand District in Herat Province in western Afghanistan. The road between the two towns […]
KABUL—For a woman in the last few weeks of her pregnancy, 24-year-old Sohaila walks surprisingly quickly as she invites us into the first-floor guest room of her traditional Afghan house in the outskirts of Kabul in October. The large yet […]
Kabul’s pediatric surgeons face a perverse challenge in determining the best way to treat newborns for war wounds.