The highway between Kabul and Jalalabad with scenes of beauty and terror
A fantastic online editorial by the NYT illustrates the danger for most Afghans who dare to drive along the country's most treacherous road, where scores are killed or injured
The Kabul-to-Jalalabad road was paved for the first time by the West German government in 1960. In the 1980s, it was almost entirely obliterated during the insurrection against the Soviet invasion. In the decade that followed, when the Taliban and other armed groups fought to control the country, the road was a blasted moonscape
The piece poignantly ends with some apt dialogue which I guess sums up the motoring skills of an Afghan, even an educated Afghan...
Each day, the broken and bloody arrive at the Sarobi Hospital, a small clinic in the town at the head of the gorge.
“Most of our patients were injured in accidents,” said Ros Mohammed Jabbar Khel, the chief surgeon.
Dr. Jabbar Khel has a plan to buy a fleet of ambulances and stage them at various points along the gorge. That way, he figures, he could save a lot of lives. He said he was waiting for the money to come from the government in Kabul.
Dr. Jabbar Khel himself drives the gorge several times a week. And each time, he said, he is filled with fear — not for his own abilities, but for those of the others.
“I have a license!” the doctor said. “I took lessons!”
Bloody Hell!
