The dark, misty eyes of the village elder in Garmsir said it all: the disappointment, cumulative fatigue and the worry that you only see in civilians caught up in a long-term combat zone. His gnarled fingers spun his worn beads relentlessly; the dry rivulets engrained on his weatherbeaten face belied his relative youth.
He had just spent an hour or more telling me in pained terms about the predicament of the 500 or so villagers – including the elderly, women and children – who had exiled themselves to the desert outside Garmsir, the southern gateway into central Helmand. For the past few weeks, the Taliban had been slowly suffocating the village with increasingly confident probing attacks against the poorly manned and equipped force of Afghan police garrisoned there. The elder explained that the villagers were left with no option but to flee to the sanctuary of the sand dunes, as they no longer felt safe sleeping in their own beds at night.
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