Feature: War in Afghanistan's northern Kunduz city leaves people scrambling to escape

Waiting at a bus stop along with other families also wanting to leave the conflict-hit Kunduz city and head to a safer place, Mohammad Sarwar, 34, lamented that there were no vehicles available to relocate his family.

"Since 05:00 a.m. local time, I have been waiting for a vehicle to take my family to Kabul, it is almost 11:00 a.m. now, but no buses or cars are available," Sarwar said, half frustrated, half terrified.

Taliban militants in a surprise move overran parts of the strategically important Kunduz city, the capital of the northern Afghanistan's Kunduz province, along the border with Tajikistan, on Oct. 3, forcing many families to leave the war zone for safer places.

The prolonged fighting has also claimed countless civilian lives over the past eight days and government forces have yet to recapture the key city in the northern region.

"Hundreds of families, including dozens of my neighbors have shifted their families to safer places including the neighboring Takhar province and the capital city of Kabul to escape the war," Sarwar, scared for the safety of his own family, said, adding that the rich families have already been able to escape the war for peaceful areas.

Revealing his nightmare, Sarwar proclaimed distraughtly that the Taliban fighters have taken positions inside residential houses and that many families have been unwittingly caught in the cross fire and ultimately have lost their lives as a result of the deadly exchanges.

"I have seen many dead bodies lying on the ground, on streets in residential areas and no one was around to rescue those stranded in the cross fire," Sarwar, head of a five-member family recounted.

His nervousness palpably growing with each second that passed as he waited for a vehicle to flee the embattled city with his family as soon as possible.

Blasting the government forces over what he described as their "failure to tackle militancy," Sarwar said he found it incomprehensible that "thousands of security forces backed by battle tanks and aircrafts" can't defeat a few hundred Taliban insurgents.

Taliban militants also captured Kunduz city for several days in October last year, forcing countless families to leave the city for safer places and killed and injured hundreds of others, who weren't lucky enough to escape.

"The continued conflict in Kunduz has robbed people here of what they once had," another fleeing Kunduz resident, Salim Habibi, 31, told Xinhua, saying, "luckily I have escaped the war, but one of my relatives was caught in cross fire and shot in the leg."

Some 22,000 families, according to Sayed Abdul Salam Hashimi, the director of the Refugees Department in Kunduz province, have relocated to Takhar, Samangan, Baghlan, Badakhshan and Kabul since the eruption of fighting in Kunduz city.

Although there is no official statistic about the number of casualties in Kunduz city, which is plagued by militants, locals believe that hundreds of civilians have been killed and injured over the past eight days of conflict.

"The streets of Kunduz city are deserted, the prices of basic goods are spiraling beyond the reach of ordinary families and some people, including children, are facing food shortages and malnutrition and Kunduz nowadays resembles a ghost city," Habibi maintained.

"It is a war zone and the destroyed military hardware, damaged houses and ruined shops and buildings are prevalent elsewhere in the city," Kunduz resident Rahmatullah Khan, 42, exclaimed.

"And those have failed to escape the war in Kunduz are facing extreme food shortages," he added.

"We have no water, no power, no gas and even some health clinics have halted operations due to the war," Khan declared, claiming that its difficult to gauge the real intensity of the problems.

"If an injured person is taken to a hospital, doctors are not available, if doctor are, then medicine isn't. It's a very real nightmare, he bawled.

Taliban militants have escalated operations over the past couple of months and fierce fighting has been continuing in Kunduz, Farah and Helmand provinces. Endit