(29 Dec 2014) Thousands of Afghans face a harsh winter in makeshift camps in Kabul, after fleeing areas the Taliban have returned to, which were once cleared by foreign forces.
On the grimy outskirts of the capital, hundreds of families are huddled in flimsy tents or mud shelters at the Bagrami camp.
By day the children forage for fuel and food.
At night the families burn rubbish to try to keep warm as the icy winds sweep down from the Hindu Kush mountains surrounding the city and temperatures plunge to below freezing.
The Bagrami camp is effectively an illegal settlement on public parkland in a middle-class Kabul suburb.
There is little local sympathy for the displaced, many in the camp said.
Local authorities have objected to proposals to dig a well to provide more water for the 400 families here, and residents complain about the smoke from the fires.
Abdul Qayyum arrived at the camp with his wife and eight children after they fled their home in Sangin in the volatile Helmand province, an opium-rich region where the British struggled for years to keep the Taliban at bay before withdrawing in 2010.
Bebi is another resident in the camp.
She has been there for six months with her children, she said, after losing her husband and oldest son when they were caught in the crossfire of a gunfight between government forces and insurgents.
She rounded up her remaining five children and made the 630-kilometre (390-mile) journey to Kabul in the hope of finding some means of support following the death of the breadwinners of her family.
They are unlikely to be the last arrivals at the camp.
The insurgents are now once again on the move, and have extended the summer fighting season as foreign forces have handed over front-line combat responsibility to Afghan security forces.
This week the US and NATO are formally ending their combat mission, 13 years after the invasion that toppled the Taliban in the wake of the September 11 attacks.
The insurgents have taken advantage of the vacuum and seized territory across the country, redrawing battle lines through urban areas and putting civilians at greater risk.
This has been the bloodiest year of the war for civilians, with the toll of dead and wounded expected to hit 10,000 for the first time since the UN began keeping records in 2008.
Meanwhile the worst of winter is yet to come for the inhabitants of Bagrami camp.
Temperatures can fall to well below freezing, with searing winds off the mountains and snow that turns to filthy ice.
Every year scores of people -- mainly children and the elderly -- die of cold and hunger, though no precise figures exist.
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