As I mentioned in my last post, I spent some time photographing in the Afghan refugee camps in the northwester territories of Pakistan in the 1990’s. At that time, I believe there were nearly seven million displaced Afghans living in Pakistan, many were in refugee camps. Conditions varied from location to location. There were a lot of children running around in the camps who had been fathered by Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan, and then, of course, after the Soviets left, they were abandoned and ostracized along with their mothers.
The image below has always stuck in my mind. The boy’s attitude and cockiness is so compelling, especially juxtaposed with the boy next to him: clearly his father wasn’t Russian. I’ve often wondered what became of him. While reading The Kite Runner and The Bookseller of Kabul, this kid constantly popped into my head.
