Wakhi nomad women milk yaks in Wakhan, Afghanistan. About 12,000 villagers live at an altitude of 4,500 metres in the harsh, desolate terrain. The Wakhi people live a simple, relaxed life with their livestock. (Photo by Eric Lafforgue/Barcroft Images)

In this photograph taken on October 4, 2016, an Afghan baker prepares bread at his shop as he waits for customers in Lashkar Gah, the capital city of Helmand province. For years Helmand was the centerpiece of the Western military intervention in Afghanistan only for it to slip deeper into a quagmire of instability, with almost the entire southern province teetering on the verge of collapse. Intensified fighting has killed hundreds and forced thousands to flee to besieged capital Lashkar Gah, sparking a humanitarian crisis as the city – one of the last government- held enclaves – risks falling to the Taliban' s repeated ferocious assaults. (Photo by Wakil Kohsar/AFP Photo)

An Afghan vendor waits for customers at his stall selling plastic cans in a market in Mazar-i-Sharif on June 15, 2025. (Photo by Atif Aryan/AFP Photo)

Masooma Alizada (L) and Frozan Rasooli (R), members of Afghanistan's Women's National Cycling Team prepare a bicycle before training on the outskirts of Kabul February 20, 2015. Afghanistan's Women's National Cycling Team has been breaking new ground for women's sports and pushing the boundaries of what is – and is not – acceptable for young women in the conservative Muslim country. (Photo by Mohammad Ismail/Reuters)

Afghan children play on the remains of a Soviet-era armored personnel carrier on the outskirts of Jalalabad on February 15, 2016. Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan on February 15, 1989, after ten years of fighting against Mujahidin militiamen. (Photo by Noorullah Shirzada/AFP Photo)

An Afghan boy looks through the scope of a toy gun, as other children ride on swings during the first day of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan, in Kabul, Afghanistan June 25, 2017. (Photo by Omar Sobhani/Reuters)

In this Monday, September 23, 2019, a woman waits for alms as she sits with her child in a street on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan. (Photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo)

A man prepares cookies at a small traditional factory for the Eid al-Adha, amid the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Kabul, Afghanistan on July 29, 2020. (Photo by Mohammad Ismail/Reuters)