Danger for the Taliban’s Favorite Victims
As the Taliban fights to make a comeback in Afghanistan, no group is in more danger than the Hazaras. The Taliban’s favorite victims, hundreds of Hazara families froze to death while fleeing their villages during winter attacks by the Taliban.
Hazaras work in a candy factory in Kabul, 2006
Farmers work in front of empty Buddha niches where the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas that had stood for over a thousand years in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, 2002
During its reign, the Taliban wreaked destruction and on as many Hazara communities as they could. Scores of Hazara villages were totally destroyed and their people killed or left to search for shelter from the harsh environment of the Hindu Kush Mountains.
Bamiyan, Afghanistan, 2006
Persecuted for centuries, the Hazaras, Shiite Muslims, and protectors of the Buddhist treasures in Bamiyan for a thousand years, have been persecuted, tortured, and slaughtered, but the ravages of the Taliban are only one chapter in the long history of discrimination and abuse.
Hazara Girl, Kabul, 2002
A local official commented that their history has been characterized by “blood and smoke.” He said that the pain is still in his heart because of the thousands that were slaughtered or died trying to escape.
Hazara School Boys, Bamiyan, 2002
Although most Hazaras live in central Afghanistan, the land they refer to as Hazarajat, the Hazaras who migrated to Kabul looking for work make up a large underclass, which takes jobs that other groups refuse – as bearers, street sweepers and other common laborers, the jobs that are referred to as “Hazara occupations.” They are seen and insulted as “donkeys.”
Hazara man pulling cart past a burning house, Kabul, Afghanistan, 1985
Bamiyan, Afghanistan. 2007
His family is poor, his clothes used. But 15-year-old Ali Aqa isn’t deterred: He plans to be a lawyer. Childhood memories include Taliban occupation of his village in Bamiyan. “They burned everything, even my school,” he says. “I pray to God no regime comes like that again.
This fascinating and resilient people hopes to have a place at the table of Afghanistan’s government, but whatever happens in the central government in Kabul, these brave and independent people will continue to struggle for survival and dignity.










Kabul, Afghanistan, 1992
Classroom in Kunduz, Afghanistan, 2002
Girls High School, Bamiyan, 2006
Hazara women at grave in Bamiyan, 2007
Bread Vendor, Kabul, 1992
Father and daughter at home with folk art on the wall, Kamdesh, Nuristan, Afghanistan, 1992
Herat Ruins, 1992
Kabul, Afghanistan, 1992
Former soldier in facility for mentally ill patients, Kabul, 1992
Tanks become toys in Kandahar, Afghanistan, 1994
Children play on an anti-aircraft gun near Beirut, Lebanon, 1982
Boys playing football in flooded pastures, Bangladesh, 1983
Children play next to an abandoned freighter, Sitwe, Myanmar (Burma), 1995
Two children play a game by a road, India, 1993
Young Cambodian boys play in the ruins of Preah Khan near Angkor Wat, Cambodia, 1999
Young monks at play, Burma, 1994
Yemen, 1997
Nepal, 1983
Boy working in candy factory, Kabul, 2006
An eleven-year-old boy working in gold mine, Mindinao, Philippines, 1985
Tibetan Girl, 2002
Children work in an opium field in Badakhshan, Afghanistan. 1982
Niger, 1995
Boy sells flowers in busy road, India 1993
Young Welder, Bombay, India, 1994
Buddha statue in Mandalay, Burma, 2008
Monk at the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, Tibet, 2000
Young monks play with computer games in Sera Monastery in Bylakuppe, India, 2001
Young nun, Rangoon, Burma, 1994
Monks in the Rain, Angkor Wat, Cambodia, 1999
A monk studies Buddhist scripture in the late afternoon at a monastery in Aranyaprathet, Thailand, 1996
Young monks study Buddhist scripture at a monastery in Litang, Kham, Tibet, 1999
Pilgrim praying at the Buddhist academy of Larung Gar, near Serthar, Kham, Tibet, 2001
Candles are a form of offering at the Tibetan Prayer Festival, during which thousands are lit under the Bodi tree. Bodh Gaya, India, 2000
Woman meditates in Bagan monastery, Burma, 2008










Kuwait, 1991
Kuwait, 1991
Kuwait, 1991
Treating an Afghan child, Kabul, Afghanistan, 2002
Iraq, 2003
Afghanistan, 2002
Luzon, Philippines, 1985
On assignment during Desert Storm, 1991
Kashmir, 1999
Kashmir, 1998
Java, 1983
Burma, 1994
Australia, 1983
Kandahar, Afghanistan, 1992
Bamiyan, Afghanistan, 2006
Morocco, 1988
Manhattan neighborhood, 1996
Central Park, New York, NY, 1994
Fall of the Berlin Wall, November, 1989



