The people

With such a long history of war, there has been no reliable census, but estimates are that about 17-20 million people live in Afghanistan. At the height of the war with the Soviet Union, there were a further 3.27 million refugees in Pakistan and nearly 3 million in Iran. Since then, many people have been repatriated and the UN believes there are currently some 1.2 million in camps in Pakistan and 800,000 in Pakistani cities.

About half of all Afghans belong to the Pashtun ethnic group, also known as the Pathans, from whom the Talibans drew their support. Their language, Pashtu, is, along with Dari (Afghan Persian), the national language. Pashtuns constitute the main population south of the Hindu Kush. Persian-speaking Hazaras and Tajiks live in the Hindu Kush, and together form about 40% of the population. Uzbeks are about 5%.

The original Mujahideen included fighters from all of Afghanistan's tribes and ethnic groups. Many turned against each other after the Soviet withdrawal: some now lead resistance to the Taliban.

Literacy levels and health standards, already poor, have been worsened by the Taliban. As Pashtuns come from the least educated and developed part of society, they turned education into a male-only preserve, ignoring the fact that many communities used to encourage girls' education and that women were once the majority of teachers and were well-represented in medicine, among students and in the professions. The already low literacy rate of 32% hides a rate among women believed to be the lowest in the world. Most women are denied health care, and are neither allowed to seek help from male medical staff nor, in effect, because of the restrictions on their mobility, to practise themselves. As a result, infant and maternal mortality rates are among the highest in the world.

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