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In April 2017, the U.S. military dropped the most powerful conventional bomb ever used in combat here: the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast, known unofficially as the “mother of all bombs,” or MOAB.
“All the people living in Asad Khel village became ill after that bomb was dropped,” says Wali, a 27-year-old farmer, pulling up the leg of his shalwar kameez to show the red bumps stretched across his calves. “I have it all over my body.” He says he got the skin disease from contamination left by the MOAB.
“We would get 150 kilograms of wheat from my land before, but now we cannot get half of that,” he says. “We came back because our homes and livelihoods are here, but this land is not safe. The plants are sick, and so are we.”
The bomb residue plaguing the village is but one example of the war’s toxic environmental legacy. For two decades, Afghans raised children, went to work and gave birth next to America’s vast military bases and burn pits, and the long-term effects of this exposure remain unclear. Dealing with the consequences of the contamination will take generations.
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📸: Kern Hendricks, Lynzy Billing
