Slow death on the jail convoy of misery

By Julius Strauss in Sherbergan

19 March 2002

THE prisoners were crammed at gunpoint into large, oblong freight containers. When no more could be squeezed in, the metal doors were shut tight. Slowly they began to suffocate.

By the time the containers were opened two days later - at the end of the journey from Kunduz to Sheberghan - many were dead.

"There was no oxygen," said Maqsood Khan, a 26-year-old Pakistani from Rawalpindi. "We drank the sweat off our own bodies and off the dead men. Some drank their urine. Of 400, half were dead by the time we arrived."

Last November as Northern Alliance forces swept into Kabul, they also surrounded several thousand Taliban soldiers in Kunduz in the north of Afghanistan.

After days of sporadic fighting and punishing American air strikes, the Taliban capitulated. Thousands disappeared.

This week I tracked them down to a crumbling prison in Sheberghan. The 3,055 survivors were crammed into filthy, lice-infested cells, emaciated and disease-ridden.

Several men related how during a two-day ordeal at the hands of Northern Alliance soldiers, hundreds or even thousands had died in the containers.

The treatment is fairly typical for prisoners of war in Afghanistan. The captors owed allegiance to Gen Abdul Rashid Dostum, the northern warlord whose men committed similar atrocities in 1997.

But at least two of the prisoners said American special forces - deployed in the area last autumn to hunt for al-Qa'eda operatives - were present when the containers were loaded and, two days later, when the containers reached Sheberghan prison carrying their cargo of live and dead prisoners. Until the end of last year access to Sheberghan prison was controlled by two American special forces soldiers.

Human rights advocates have championed the cause of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Others have launched investigations into the prison uprising at Qala-i-Jhangi fort near Mazar-i-Sharif where hundreds more Taliban and al-Qa'eda fighters died.

But a far greater crime appears to have remained hidden from view. Stories such as these have only served to harden the resolve of Islamic militants.

An exact tally of the number of dead is unlikely ever to emerge. But eye-witness testimony suggests the number of victims is high.

The prison commandant admitted that 43 men were dead when the containers arrived but blamed the deaths on injuries sustained in battle.

The prisoners' account, however, seems to be backed up by a lorry driver from Mazar-i-Sharif who was interviewed last month by a western journalist.

Refusing to give his name for fear of retribution, he said his freight lorry was requisitioned at gunpoint by Northern Alliance soldiers. He said he had been forced to carry prisoners to Sheberghan. They begged for air and water.

The prisoners' ordeal began in late November when they surrendered to a coalition of Northern Alliance soldiers and American special forces. Most were in their teens and as well as Pakistanis, droves of Saudis, Chechens, Yemenis and even Uighurs from China had joined the jihad against America.

When Kunduz fell, the pro-Taliban forces were corralled into large groups. Afghan soldiers forced them at gunpoint to clamber into the steel containers on lorries. For up to two days the prisoners were kept in the containers. Some said the doors were opened briefly in Mazar-i-Sharif.

Some of the prisoners said they were saved when they managed to smash holes in the floors of the containers, allowing in some air.

One Pakistani said that when they hammered on the sides of the containers, Northern Alliance soldiers opened the rear doors and sprayed them with gunfire.

Sajjid Mehmood, an 18-year-old from Karachi, said: "There were about 250 men in the container I was in. We were praying, shouting and begging for mercy. It was very difficult to breathe. Zubair, a man who was crushed up against me, died after two or three hours. We were praying to God. When the soldiers heard our cries for help they opened the rear doors and began shooting.

"Many of us died, maybe 20 or 30. When the container arrived after 18 hours, 150 out of 250 people were dead." Today Sheberghan prison, originally built for 500 to 1,000 inmates, houses more than 3,000. The commandant said 807 of them are Pakistanis. The rest are Afghans.

Inside, the prisoners are crammed into three small cell blocks. A guard wielding a metal chain whips them to keep order. Food is limited to three tiny meals a day, mostly bread, rice and unsugared tea. Twice a week the prisoners receive meat. There are few vegetables and no fruit and many of the prisoners are emaciated.

Hygiene is poor. The men are infested with lice and fleas. Two Western doctors from Physicians for Human Rights, who visited the prison in January, said dysentery, respiratory diseases and jaundice were rife.

The leading al Qa'eda operatives who were at the prison have been taken away by American soldiers. Most are now at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. But the ones left behind, the foot soldiers, have been forgotten. "Nearly everyone is sick here. Many urinate blood," said Haider Ali, 22, who shares a cell with 36 other inmates.

The commandant of the prison admitted that conditions were grim but he said the Afghans lacked the money to give them better care.