KABUL, March 24: One hundred counter-narcotics policemen lost their lives in violence in Afghanistan in the past year, most of them during efforts to eradicate opium poppies, a government minister said on Monday.

Insecurity is the main obstacle to efforts to eradicate the illegal crop, with most opium grown in the most insecure areas of the country, Deputy Interior Minister General Mohammad Daud Daud told reporters.

Afghanistan grows more than 90 per cent of the world’s illegal opium, a sector worth about $4 billion a year, a portion of which funds an insurgency by the Taliban, who sometimes protect poppy fields and trafficking routes.

Most of the opium is grown in unstable areas in the south, Daud said. “Over the past year, 100 counter-narcotics policemen were martyred in poppy eradication operations,” he said.

Despite the threats, more than 10,000 hectares of opium fields were eradicated last year, the minister said. —AFP