Inside Afghanistan’s only secure psychiatric institution

In a small, cold courtyard in Herat, two former enemies sit chained together. One is a former warlord, the other a Taliban fighter. Both are suffering from severe psychiatric conditions.

They are among around 300 patients at Afghanistan’s only secure psychiatric institution, where men and women considered too dangerous to be treated in a general hospital live behind locked gates.

Nearly four decades of war have left a devastating legacy of trauma and mental illness across Afghanistan. In a country where psychiatric conditions are often met with stigma and suspicion, the challenge of providing care is immense.

For BBC World Service’s Assignment, Sahar Zand gains unprecedented access to the institution, meeting the doctors struggling to respond to the country’s mental-health crisis and the patients whose lives have been shaped by decades of conflict.

February 2018   ·   Assignment