First Person Global.(Brief Article)

In a futile effort to survive the unending drought, Jalmuhammad Ahad began selling his possessions. He peddled his livestock and family heirlooms, even the teakettle. Finally, he decided enough was enough. There was no food left and little drinking water. The 50-year-old father of three gathered his wife and children, packed his remaining blankets and a few meager possessions onto a donkey and set out on foot for Herat.

I met Jalmuhammad, sporting a gray beard and a white turban, on a drizzly morning at the Maslakh refugee camp--one of the largest in the world with an estimated 300,000 inhabitants--10 miles outside Herat. An icy wind swept across the plain where he had been sleeping with his family, using a blanket as a rain cover, for just the past 10 days. His 5-year-old son had frozen to death two nights before. The remaining two children had been sent out into the camp to beg for food. Around him, hundreds of other new arrivals huddled under plastic sheets or blankets. More than 1,000 Afghans, fleeing drought and starvation, joined him each day.

Maslakh, which means slaughterhouse in the local dialect, is overwhelmed. The never-ending misery, mud and stench of excrement are almost intolerable. When I visited the camp, ...