Living Beneath the Drones

The devastating impact that war and living under the constant threat of drones has had on the people of Afghanistan.



Twenty-eight-year-old Sadiqullah worked as a cook in a hotel in Afghanistan's Pech District when US drones targeting Taliban fighters hit the area.

"Lots of people who were in the restaurant were all killed in front of his eyes," explains veteran Afghan journalist and filmmaker Najibullah Quraishi.

Six years later Sadiqullah continues to replay the horror of that attack in his mind. Seated on a woven cot in the courtyard of his family's home in Jalalabad, Sadiqullah exhibits the acute symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), trapped in a cycle of mental distress and beating his chest and weeping.

There are many others like Sadiqullah; over 60 percent of the population suffers from a mental health problem.