CONCEPT – wakhan corridor

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 CONCEPT – wakhan corridor

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• ​In the far northeast of Afghanistan lie the mountains of the Wakhan Corridor. This rugged area, tucked between the giants of the Hindu Kush and the Pamirs, has remained untouched by the wars that have battered the country for so many years.  Since 2006, the region has been accessible from neighbouring Tajikistan and the most dangerous part of Afghanistan.
• The Wakhan Corridor extends in a panhandle in Afghanistan’s northeastern Badakhshan province up to the relatively small border with China’s Xinjiang province. The corridor is roughly 210 km long (130 miles) long and between 20 km and 60 km wide. Tajikistan lies to the north and Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province and disputed Jammu and Kashmir lie to the south. The border at the eastern end in the Hindu Kush is one of the highest in the world at 4,293 metres.
• The corridor is populated primarily by Wakhi farmers and yurt-dwelling Kyrghyz herders, with the agricultural economy dominated by subsistence farming. The population has been estimated at about 10,600. People in the corridor suffer from a range of problems including poverty, ill health, lack of education, food insecurity and opium addiction, according to a United Nations Environment Programme and Food and Agriculture Organization report.
• The Anglo-Russian Boundary Commission awarded the area to Afghanistan in 1895-96 to create a buffer between the two empires. The corridor was once part of the fabled Silk Road but has been closed to regular border traffic for almost 100 years.
• The mountainous, sparsely populated Wakhan Corridor is the primary habitat in Afghanistan for snow leopards, which are listed as endangered or threatened under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. It is estimated there are only between 100 and 200 snow leopards left in Afghanistan, about the same number as in Bhutan, and a complete hunting ban has been in place since 2002. The Wakhan Corridor is also home to wild Marco Polo sheep.
• The Wakhan Corridor escaped the worst effects of the long years of war suffered elsewhere in Afghanistan since the December 1979 invasion by the Soviet Union. There are no minefields but there were several Soviet garrisons in the area.

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