Darayim (Agenices): At least four farmers have died, and five others have been injured in a dispute over the poppy field destruction in the northeastern Darayim district of Badakhshan province of Afghanistan.
The incident occurred in the village of Doabe Tagab in the Darayim district of Badakhshan on Thursday when the Taliban forces reportedly arrived to destroy the local’s poppy crops. However, a dispute erupted when the farmers sought payment for the money spent on their lands.
As a result, Taliban forces opened fire on farmers, killing four and injuring five others. At the same time, another local source claimed that 15 individuals were hurt during the dispute, including the district commander and six other Taliban fighters.
The locals, who were outraged by the Taliban’s conduct, demanded that those involved be brought to justice. On the other hand, the Taliban were seen establishing a roadblock in the area out of concern about a local uprising.
The Taliban has not yet responded to the incident, in the meantime.
According to UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report, since the takeover of the Taliban in August 2021, opium cultivation in Afghanistan increased by 32% over the previous year to 233,000 hectares – making the 2022 crop the third largest area under opium cultivation since monitoring began.
On the other hand, since the Taliban announced the cultivation ban in April 2022, opium prices have soared.
Opiate seizures around Afghanistan show that the flow of opium and heroin out of Afghanistan has not stopped. Afghanistan meets eighty per cent of the world’s opiate demand.
Meanwhile, the majority of the opium crop for 2023 must be sowed by early November, and farmers will decide whether and how much to plant in the face of a severe economic and humanitarian crisis, persistently high opium prices, and uncertainty regarding how the de facto authorities will enforce the cultivation ban.
Four farmers killed over Poppy field destruction in Afghanistan’s Badakhshan
