IRIN Asia Afghanistan : Kabul drug addicts running out of hope | Early Warning Health & Nutrition | Feature
KABUL, 30 August 2009 (IRIN) – Ehsanullah, aged 28, has been on a waiting list for nearly three months to be admitted to an NGO-run drug addicts’ rehabilitation centre in Kabul. He cannot get in because there are too many people ahead of him on the list.
About 200 drug users, mainly heroin addicts, have been hanging around for months in rooms and tents on the premises of the centre, where free treatment is provided by a couple of NGOs.
Tariq Sulaiman, director of the Nejat Centre (one of the NGOs), regretted that the rehabilitation centre only had 100 beds.
Most of those hanging around are addicts from the provinces and rural areas who have no accommodation in Kabul.
“I have been waiting here for over two months,” said an addict from the northern province of Faryab.
“We are often starving,” said another man seeking treatment.
“When we go outside people make fun of us and sarcastically call us `podary’ [heroin addict],” said Shir Agha, another addict.
