MONDAY, APRIL 25 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ SU AThe WorldYEMENFirst commercial flight
in six years canceledY emen’s warring parties failed
to operate the first commercial
flight in six years from the rebel-
held capital on Sunday, dealing a
blow to an already fragile truce in
the country’s grinding conflict.
The flight to Amman, Jordan,
had been planned as part of the
60-day truce that the
internationally recognized
government and the Houthi rebels
struck earlier this month. The
truce is the first nationwide cease-
fire in Yemen in six years.
Yemen’s civil war erupted in
2014, when the Iranian-backed
Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa,
and forced the government into
exile. A Saudi-led coalition
entered the war in 2015 to try
restore the government to power.
As part of the truce, the two
sides agreed to operate two
commercial flights a week to and
from Sanaa to Jordan and Egypt.
Sanaa is blockaded by the
coalition.However, both sides failed to
operate the first flight more than
three weeks after the truce took
effect, and they traded blame for
the cancellation.
— Associated PressTribal clashes kill 168 in Darfur,
group says: Tribal clashes
between Arabs and non-Arabs in
Sudan’s war-ravaged Darfur region
have killed 168 people, a local aid
group said, the latest bout of
intercommunal violence in the
country since a military coup last
year. Adam Regal, spokesman for
the General Coordination for
Refugees and Displaced in Darfur,
said fighting in the Kreinik area of
West Darfur province also
wounded 98. He said the clashes
erupted Thursday and continued
into Sunday. Darfur has seen bouts
of clashes between rival tribes in
recent months as Sudan remains
mired in c risis after the coup.Israel lifts indoor mask mandate
as coronavirus cases drop: Israel
has lifted an indoor mask
mandate in place for nearly a year
as new cases of coronaviruscontinue to drop there. Masks
remain mandatory in hospitals, in
elderly-care facilities and on
international flights. Israel has
seen new cases decline since the
peak of the latest wave of
infections in January. Serious
cases have plummeted from a high
of more than 1,200 in the omicron
variant outbreak to around 200.11 of 26 on Japanese boat
confirmed dead: Rescuers
searching since a tour boat
carrying 26 people apparently
sank off far northeastern Japan
have found the body of an 11th
victim. The child was found late
Sunday and later confirmed dead,
the coast guard said. The Kazu 1
with two crew was taking 24
passengers, including two
children, on a scenic tour at
Shiretoko National Park on the
northern side of Hokkaido,
Japan’s northernmost main
island, when it sent a distress call
Saturday afternoon saying it was
sinking. The Transport Ministry is
investigating the boat’s operator,
which had two accidents last year.
— From news servicesDIGESTEMRAH GUREL/ASSOCIATED PRESS
French army officers carry the remains of one of 17 missing French soldiers who fought in the World War
I Battle of Gallipoli in Çanakkale, Turkey. The remains, which were handed over Sunday to French military
officials, were found during restoration work on a castle and surrounding areas.BY PAMELA CONSTABLE
IN KABULN
ine months ago, Karzai
Balochkhel was a student
in 10th grade learning
math, physics and even a
bit of art history. Today, he is an
itinerant peddler, selling paper
towels door to door and learning
how to haggle over pennies. On a
good day, he can make about $4,
just enough for his family to eat
that night.
At 16, Karzai is among thou-
sands of students who have had to
drop out of school or cut classes to
work since the Taliban takeover in
August. With almost no foreign
aid entering the country and
many adults jobless, more and
more boys have become bread-
winners for their families.
In Kabul, war and poverty have
long created a permanent under-
class of child beggars, scavengers
and shoeshine boys, but their
numbers have soared in recent
months. Today, boys of all sizes
roam the streets of the capital,
toiling in markets and garages and
trash dumps.
While the Taliban government
has provoked international out-
rage for banning girls from sec-
ondary school, it has encouraged
boys to get an education. Azizur
Rahman Rayan, the education
ministry spokesman, said 6 mil-
lion boys are in school, as well as
2.7 million girls, although The
Washington Post could not verify
those figures.
In Kabul, some boys attend
school in the mornings, then work
in the afternoons. At a nonprofit
program called Aschiana, more
than 1,500 working boys take
morning classes and eat lunch be-
fore they hit the streets. Yousef
Nawabi, the program director,
says the need has skyrocketed in
recent months.
“The rich have left, the some-
what poor have become more
poor, and the very poor are desper-
ate,” Nawabi said. During the past
two decades, he noted, interna-
tional funds poured in for social
programs, many focused on chil-
dren. “Now that has all stopped.”
For boys like Karzai, who grew
up in an era of rapid moderniza-
tion and rising expectations for
Afghan youth, with new schools
built across the country and pri-
vate universities flourishing, be-
ing forced into menial work has
been especially hard.
His younger brother, Shahid,
14, also had to leave school and
accompanies him on his daily
rounds. “I am trying to keep my
brain alive, but every day I carry a
stone on my shoulder,” Karzai
said.
One day last week, the brothers
headed into the city early, sharing
a taxi for 10 cents. They stopped at
a supplier, where they picked up
plastic sacks of kitchen and bath-
room rolls on credit, then plotted
their route. First they hit a busy
market in Khair Khana, holding
up their wares at the doorways of
mobile phone dealers, beauty par-
lors and appliance shops. Not once
were they invited inside.
As they threaded their way
among crowds of shoppers and
beggars, they repeatedly encoun-
tered possible customers who ap-
peared to dressed well but said
their asking price of about $1.In Afghanistan, boys are now breadwinnersChildren are dropping out of s chool to earn a living on the streets as the economy c ontinues to crater following the Taliban takeoverper roll was too high, even when
they offered to accept less.
Along the way, Karzai passed
several restaurants where he had
once made regular sales. Now they
were all closed for the month of
Ramadan, which meant the boys
walked all day without eating or
drinking. “It’s hot and especially
hard on my brother,” he said.
Next they tried a block of
brightly lit jewelry emporiums,
but a guard shooed them away.
Finally, a man changing money at
a sidewalk table said he would buy
a roll of toilet paper. The brothers
exchanged quick smiles. The man,
Najib Bashir, asked about their
situation, then laughed ruefully
and switched to English.
“I’m in the same position they
are,” he said. Before the Taliban
takeover, Bashir had worked as a
security coordinator for the World
Bank. But the bank shut down its
office in Kabul and he was left
jobless, with a wife and four chil-
dren, hoping in vain for a foreign
visa. Now, he makes little more
than $4 a day. “It’s not enough, but
what choice do I have?” he said.
The brothers decided to try an-
other district with several hospi-
tals and drugstores. Karzai said
pharmacists often needed paper
towels, but on this day only one,
Murtaza Khaleqe, asked for a roll,
frowning at the price. Since the
change of government, his busi-
ness has fallen by 70 percent. “Peo-
ple get prescriptions, but they
can’t afford to fill them,” he said.Half an hour later, the brothers
spotted another boy coming
toward them, carrying identical
plastic sacks of paper towels over
his shoulder. They exchanged
greetings, but it was an awkward
moment. “Everyone’s getting into
this business now,” Karzai said
with a sigh.
After about four hours of walk-
ing, they decided to call it quits.
Their total take was 400 Afghanis,
about $4, minus the commission
they had to return to the supplier.
Asked why they didn’t try to sell
their products closes to home,
Karzai shook his head firmly. “No-
body in our area uses paper,” he
said. “That’s only for rich people.”
Shahid, who had a headache
from walking in the sun, said there
was another reason. “People there
laugh at us and call us bad names,”
he said. “But we have to keep
going. If we come home with some
money for food, our parents are
happy. If we don’t, they are upset.
That’s the only thing we think
about all day.”
The Balochkhel family home is
a small rented house in Pul-i-
Charkhi, a district of dirt streets
and crowded markets in eastern
Kabul. The front door looks out on
a stony vacant lot. The rooms are
mostly empty, the walls bare.
The father, Yusuf, was once a
police officer, taking home more
than $200 per month. But he lost
his job when the Taliban took over,
like thousands of other govern-
ment workers, and has been un-able to find work since. Two older
brothers fled to Pakistan, where
one washes cars and the other
sews tunics.
The family is almost totally de-
pendent on Karzai and Shahid,
whose earnings are not enough to
pay the rent, and often not enough
to buy more than rice and lentils
for dinner. The decision to pull
them out of school was a desperate
last resort.
“You cannot know the sadness
that has stayed in my heart be-
cause I had to take them away
from their studies,” said Yusuf, 45,
wringing his hands in distress as
he sat in their front room. Ten
years ago, he moved his family
from their ancestral village to the
capital, just so his younger sons
could get an education.
“We had enough to live on. The
boys were doing well in school. We
had no worries,” he said. “Then, in
just one day, we lost everything.”
After supper, Karzai said, he
sometimes leafs through his old
school books, partly to fend off
feeling depressed, partly to see if
he can retain some of his lessons.
That evening, he could not find his
physics textbook, so he brought
out his Pashto language work-
book. One section was about Euro-
pean art, illustrated with copies of
paintings by Rembrandt and Leo-
nardo da Vinci.
“I like looking at these things,
but it makes me sadder,” he said.
“Maybe it’s better if I don’t try to
remember at all.”PHOTOS BY PAMELA CONSTABLE/THE WASHINGTON POSTTOP: Karzai Balochkhel sells toilet paper to a pharmacist,
Murtaza Khaleqe, in Kabul this month. He left his studies
after the Taliban takeover to eke out a living for his family.
ABOVE: Karzai and his younger brother, Shahid, peddle
the paper on the streets, hoping to earn money for food.