Feature: Homesick displaced Afghans seek peace to return home

Marginalized by a group of playing children outside Afghanistan's Kunduz provincial capital the Kunduz city, Zarmina, 9, whispered that the children here do not like to play with her and that is why she feels upset.

"I like to return to my village in Qala-e-Zal and play with Maryam, Farida, Nahed and others," said the depressed girl.

Zarmina's family is one of hundreds of the families who left his home in the beleaguered Qala-e-Zal district some three weeks ago for safer place to escape the war there.

"I usually played with Nahid and Farida outside our home in Qala-e-Zal," Zarmina recalled.

She also murmured that living outside home along with relatives is boring, buzzing no one likes to play "with you or accompany you" to go out.

Revealing her nostalgia, Zarmina said in her village in Qala-e-Zal, she had house, farmland and garden but in Kunduz city her father's relative has a small house and nothing more, no garden and no farmland to walk.

The ongoing war between Taliban and government forces for the control of Qala-e-Zal district along the border with Tajikistan has forced hundreds of families to leave their houses for safer places.

"I had no choice but to leave my home for Kunduz city," Zarmina's father Mohammad Islam, 45, told Xinhua.

Revealing his ordeal, the dejected man said the brutal and endless war in Qala-e-Zal district had claimed dozens of lives including some of his friends and relatives, leaving for him no choice but to migrate to survive.

"I could not collect my harvest due to the endless war but fortunately was able to save myself and the lives of my children," Islam who is the father of six kids told Xinhua.

Fighting between Taliban outfit and government forces has intensified in Qala-e-Zal, Dasht-e-Archi, Chardara and Imam Sahib districts of Kunduz province over the past couple of months.

Taliban militants who briefly captured Kunduz city in September last year, have intensified activities to overrun Qala-e-Zal and the neighboring Imam Sahib and Dasht-e-Archi districts.

The ongoing fighting in the said districts have forced hundreds of families to leave their houses for safer places and rendered countless families homeless.

"Around 600 families from Qala-e-Zal have been forced to leave their houses because of the brutal war there," an elder of Qala-e-Zal district Hajji Mohammad Hasan confirmed to Xinhua.

Living with a relative in Kunduz city, Hasan exclaimed that the displaced families have been living with relatives, in rented houses and in open air or in makeshift camps.

Majority of the displaced families are farmers and have left behind whatever they had, Hassan said, lamenting that the heads of families have taken their children out of villages to escape the war and nothing more.

"Neither government nor any other agency have provided humanitarian assistance to the newly displaced families," the aged Hassan claimed.

Like homesick Zarmina another displaced kid Mahmoud, seven and his father Afzal, 50 feel nostalgia for their home, counting days to return to their village in Qala-e-Zal. Enditem