Ragged men with sickly yellowed faces tread through trash and wastewater to the junkie slum in Quetta's main drain -- a pit of filth and disease where heroin from nearby Afghanistan sells like candy.
They call it home, this scene from hell in the southwestern Pakistan city of Quetta. For a dollar they can smoke away their troubles, and if they die, the pushers will pay other addicts to dump the bodies by the road.
Tentacles of the booming narcotics trade reach from Afghanistan, a couple of hours drive away, into Quetta's back streets where the drug is smoked or injected, and into the pockets of corrupt officials and police.
PHOTO: AP
About 400 addicts live in hovels that line the wide, open drain. Hundreds of others visit daily, climbing in under a bridge near an entrance to the city's vast military garrison.
Among them are barefooted boys, gray-bearded men and even government officials who come for a fix before and after work. They huddle around charcoal burners and candles placed on upturned bricks, smoking hashish and brown heroin that bubbles and melts on tin foil before they inhale its fumes.
"It's easier for us to get heroin than it is to quit," said Jan Bibi, looking haggard beyond her 40 years.
Her brother introduced her to the drug to "relax" her after her husband beat her. Her son, Dad Mohammed, 18, was already an addict. He started at age 11.
"Nobody accepts us in society. Everybody hates us. They abuse us in the street," Mohammed said.
His last 70-rupee (US$1.15) smoke was eight hours ago, and his hands were trembling.
Aftab Ali works for a charity, the Milo Shahid Trust, which runs detoxification and rehab programs. He sees new faces at the slum each time he visits the drain, twice a week -- people from Quetta, refugees from Afghanistan, and addicts who come from other parts of Pakistan for the cheap and plentiful drugs.
Ali said there were at least 5,000 to 6,000 addicts at about a dozen hangouts around Quetta -- but added the population is transient, so it's unclear if numbers are increasing because of the massive output of drugs from top world producer Afghanistan.
Addicts at the drain mostly smoke rather than inject, which is forbidden by the half dozen dealers who supply the heroin.
"They're thinking of their business. If addicts inject, they will die and sales will go down," Ali said.
Nevertheless, each month at least two or three addicts die from disease or overdoses, rising to four or five during winter, he said. Dealers pay heroin to other addicts to haul the dead to a roadside to be collected by charity workers.
"Police don't come inside the drain as they get weeklies and monthlies [bribes] from the dealers," said 30-year old addict Saifullah.
"If they try and arrest us outside, we have knives to cut our bodies or will bash our heads with stones. If we bleed, they'll be afraid and leave us alone," he said.
Qazi Abdul Wahid, the police superintendent for downtown Quetta, said police do take action against drug traffickers, but conceded that corruption exists as salaries are low.
A sad camaraderie exists among the addicts, who support themselves by begging and petty crime. They pick the lice from each other's matted hair in the shacks they share, the grimy brick walls sometimes decorated with fraying posters of Indian movie stars.
Many complain they can't afford to quit -- a two-month program at the Shahid Trust costs 4,000 rupees. But they get little public sympathy.
"If we just shot three or four of these guys, then they would quit," said Gul Khan, an excise department official.
Asamatullah, 37, who smokes eight to 10 times a day, runs what could pass for a convenience store in the drain, peddling hashish, heroin, sedatives and drug paraphernalia, including cigarettes, tin foil and string for wicks.
"I'm ready to sacrifice this life if the police want to shoot me," Asamatullah said, slurring his words and struggling to keep his drooping eyes open. "I'm ready to become a lesson for other drug addicts ... I've already lost my life."
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