The Free Water Has Run Out—Was Published
They had entered a province that is water-poor, located kilometers from the Kamal Khan Dam on the big Hirmand/Helmand River
The title “The Free Water Has Run Out” was published by the Interpret literary magazine in Scotland. This piece is penned by Zahra Mushtaq, an Iranian journalist, and was written during the fall regime of the Republic of Afghanistan on August 15, 2021, about the escape of the soldiers of the Afghan National Army to Iran.
This piece, along with the writings of three other war-torn countries such as Ukraine, Myanmar, and Palestine, was published in issue 11 of Interpret Literary Magazine on March 30, 2024, with the translation of Asadullah in both Print and Electronic formats. Now, the printed version of issue 11 of this magazine can be obtained from everywhere, and you can also read its electronic version at this link: Issue 11 of Interpret Magazine 2024
A Part of the Piece:
The soldiers had fled to Iran with the ammunition. In the first days, high-ranking officers were sent to Kabul by plane, but once the city fell, it was no longer possible to send the rest of the military. Even hearing the name of the Taliban frightened us all. In the hot air of Sistan-Baluchistan, the soldiers were lying in thick overalls in the abandoned village school. Sitting in the courtyard, against the toilet walls. An ordinary school in Hirmand, a camp for three hundred people.
The mats spread out in the classrooms and the hallways, worn and archaic, once belonged to the rural students of this boarding school. There was nowhere to bathe; the soldiers poured water on their heads and bodies with a hose in the schoolyard. They had not taken off their thick clothes for days and had nothing else to wear except military boots.
They had entered a province that is water-poor, located kilometers from the Kamal Khan Dam on the big Hirmand/Helmand River. The same dam that, on its inauguration day, Ashraf Ghani, fugitive president of Afghanistan, told with a proud tone, “Free Water Has Run Out. From now on, water will be exchanged for oil.”
