{"id":364636,"date":"2018-06-09T03:11:14","date_gmt":"2018-06-09T02:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/digging-deeper-dissident-voice\/"},"modified":"2018-06-09T03:11:14","modified_gmt":"2018-06-09T02:11:14","slug":"digging-deeper-dissident-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/digging-deeper-dissident-voice\/","title":{"rendered":"Digging Deeper | Dissident Voice"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Here in Kabul in early June, outside the home of several <a href=\"https:\/\/charterforcompassion.org\/afghan-peace-volunteers\">Afghan Peace Volunteers<\/a>,\u00a0a large drilling machine is parked on what was once a lovely garden. To this now muddy patch, workers will soon arrive for another noisy, dusty day of digging for water. The well dried up a week ago. As of today, the household has no water.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/dissidentvoice.org\/2018\/06\/digging-deeper\/well_digging_machine\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-80849\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-80849\" src=\"https:\/\/dissidentvoice.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Well_Digging_Machine-e1528350571960.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"600\" \/><\/a>Well digging machine in APV\u2019s garden (Photo by Dr. Hakim)<\/p>\n<p>Ongoing battles between militants, government forces, and international allies have destroyed much of Kabul\u2019s water infrastructure, forcing people to drill their own wells.<\/p>\n<p>Across Kabul, numerous households face similar <a href=\"http:\/\/www.circleofblue.org\/2018\/asia\/in-kabul-residents-chase-receding-groundwater\/\">water shortages<\/a>. With an average annual rainfall of just fourteen inches, Kabul\u2019s water table has been falling each year. The current population, estimated around 4.5 million, is expected to reach 9 million by 2050. The estimated groundwater potential is enough to supply only 2 million inhabitants with water.<\/p>\n<p>Alarming reports say that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tolonews.com\/business\/21-provinces-face-drought-rainfall-reduces\">drought now afflicts<\/a> twenty-one of Afghanistan\u2019s thirty-four provinces.<\/p>\n<p>Rural families in drought-stricken areas watch their crops fail and their livestock die of dehydration. In desperation, they flee to urban areas, including Kabul, where they often must live in squalid, sprawling refugee camps. In the city, an already inadequate sewage and sanitation system, battered by years of war, cannot support the soaring population rise.<\/p>\n<p>Droughts in other countries have led to violent clashes and civil wars. It\u2019s difficult to imagine that&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dissidentvoice.org\/2018\/06\/digging-deeper\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here in Kabul in early June, outside the home of several Afghan Peace Volunteers,\u00a0a large drilling machine is parked on what was once a lovely garden. To this now muddy patch, workers will soon arrive for another noisy, dusty day of digging for water. The well dried up a week ago. As of today, the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2525,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-364636","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2525"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364636\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}