Afghanistan's air pollution problem
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Sayed Mahdi, 13, gestures and rubs his irritated eyes inside the bakery of his father, Sayed Mohammed, 45, as the room fills with smoke

Sayed Mahdi, 13, gestures and rubs his irritated eyes inside the bakery of his father, Sayed Mohammed, 45, as the room fills with smoke, in an internally displaced camp on the outskirts of Herat, western Afghanistan, February 5, 2020. Mahdi and his father have been displaced by the war and drought. They have arrived in this camp three years ago. Together the have been running a bakery for over one year, baking bread for hundreds of families who can't afford to buy coal to cook for themselves. Mohammed tells of how the doctor warned him to stop working as the continuous inhaling of fumes from the plastic plastic, wood and coal to bake bread is making him and his son sick. Mohammed has developed asthma and Mahdi has a cough that does not go away. “I know this work is very bad for my health, and my son's. But when I do not bake the families of this community go hungry. This is something difficult for me to accept”, Mohammed explains.

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Siegfried Modola
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Sayed Mahdi, 13, gestures and rubs his irritated eyes inside the bakery of his father, Sayed Mohammed, 45, as the room fills with smoke, in an internally displaced camp on the outskirts of Herat, western Afghanistan, February 5, 2020. Mahdi and his father have been displaced by the war and drought. They have arrived in this camp three years ago. Together the have been running a bakery for over one year, baking bread for hundreds of families who can't afford to buy coal to cook for themselves. Mohammed tells of how the doctor warned him to stop working as the continuous inhaling of fumes from the plastic plastic, wood and coal to bake bread is making him and his son sick. Mohammed has developed asthma and Mahdi has a cough that does not go away. “I know this work is very bad for my health, and my son's. But when I do not bake the families of this community go hungry. This is something difficult for me to accept”, Mohammed explains.