I’ve been to Afghanistan more than 30 times. My first trip into Afghanistan was when the civil war just broke out. I went back many times to photograph the growing refugee population, due to the systematic destruction of villages and homes by the Afghan army. The Afghan government was trying to evacuate the entire countryside of rebels and people who were against the central government. While on this assignment, I photographed this refugee man with this turban covering his eye, due to a cataract operation which he had just undergone. While in that camp, I was arrested by the Pakistani police. I was put in jail for five days, questioned, because I was trying to slip into Afghanistan to cover the war there. After five days without being fed, only given water, I was eventually released and thinking I might be deported. Fortunately, I was not deported, and I was able to continue to cover this story about the Afghan-Pakistan conflict.
Balochistan, Pakistan, 1981
