KABUL: Gunmen shot dead nine homeless drug users in the Afghan capital, officials said on Sunday, shining a light on chronic drug abuse in the world’s biggest producer of opium but a rare incident of apparently coordinated violence against addicts.

The motive for the Saturday night attack by the unidentified gunmen in Kabul was not known and police said they were investigating. The men had been sleeping in an open area and a forensic examination had shown they were drug users.

“The shooting took place at the side of the Qrough mountain,” a spokesman for Kabul police, Ferdaus Faramarz, said.

There are an estimated 2.5 million drug users in Afghan­istan, the Ministry of Public Health says, with most thought to be addicted to heroin made from opium poppies grown in Afghanistan.

Some 20,000 drug users are homeless, with half that number in Kabul, at times straining relations with residents of some communities.

“It’s a social crisis,” said Dr Shokoor Haidari, deputy of the mi­n­istry’s counter-drugs department. The ministry can only treat 40,000 people a year but far more seek help, said Haidari.

Lack of social services, unemployment and easy access to drugs have fuelled drug abuse in Afghanistan, he said.

Harsh winter weather killed at least 50 homeless drug users in the past two months, the Ministry of Public Health said.

Afghanistan has been the world’s biggest producer of opi­um for years despite some $8.9 billion spent since 2002 by the US government to stop production and trafficking in narcotics.

With compelling economic incentives and deeply entren­ched and politically protected networks — from cultivators to producers and distributors — officials say there is little they can do to stop it.

The Interior Ministry this month announced the arrest of five top police officials, including the head of Kabul’s counter-narcotics force, for suspected involvement in drug trafficking.

Published in Dawn, February 17th, 2020