Fighting, Famine and Freeze Sap Afghan Spirit

Feb. 21 -- Alexander the Great never managed it, neither did British imperial troops and sturdy Russian Cossack regiments. Even the 1979 Soviet invasion ultimately ended in failure.

None of history's fiercest conquerors ever broke the indefatigable Afghan spirit. They tried and failed to beat a group of people often billed as the toughest in the world.

But after more than 20 years of civil war, two years of drought and a merciless winter, the Afghan spirit, by accounts from the region, has finally snapped.

In a land where heroes of the likes of Rudyard Kipling's Kimball O'Hara dared tread, there are millions of displaced Afghans cramming into refugee camps across the region, freezing in the harsh winter of the northern Hindu Kush mountains and collapsing under crushing poverty.

At the Pakistan border, 80,000 Afghan refugees are stranded without proper shelter, sanitation or water and conditions are only further deteriorating.

To the north, at the Afghan border with Tajikistan, tens of thousands of stranded Afghans are risking starvation, the weather and fighting between Taliban and opposition forces.

No Hope at the Borders

Both Pakistan and Tajikistan have closed their borders to Afghan asylum seekers. Tajikistan, fearing political instability and reprisals from the Taliban which controls most of Afghanistan, closed its borders last September.

Pakistan, after witnessing some 170,000 Afghan asylum seekers heading for its borders since September was forced to close the gates last November.

In neighboring Iran, tribesmen with ethnic ties to the fleeing Afghans have let in thousands of refugees.

Within Afghanistan, aid officials say the situation is worse. In the west Afghanistan city of Herat, some 80,000 Afghans fleeing the drought from neighboring areas face starvation in squalid, ill-equipped camps.

A Winter of Discontent

This winter, the hardest hit have been the Afghan children, many of whom have simply frozen to death as blankets to keep off the bitter subzero temperatures ran scarce.