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A guard clad in a shepherd's felt cape stands on sacks of flour destined for the drought victims left behind in the caves of Murghab Canyon. Regi, Badghis Province. 30 March 2001...To facilitate a report on the drought that had affected the entire north-west of the country, the Taliban leadership in Kandahar agreed that, contrary to its normal policy, I should be allowed to photograph those in distress...When Afghanistan endured its worst drought in thirty years, four million people were forced to leave their homes. The cumulative effect of three rainless years, the extreme cold of the previous winter, and the war in the north-east had made a humanitarian disaster inevitable. The Taliban leadership and World Food Program repeatedly asked the international community for help. But with its refusal to extradite Osama bin Laden, the Taliban regime effectively sealed the Emirate of Afghanistan's isolation. One consequence of the UN sanctions against it was a ban on Ariana flights, which in turn impeded the transport of relief goods and desperately needed medical supplies. While the sanctions forbade members of the international community, the EU and ASEAN from providing any help at all, economic or military, the Northern Alliance, the Taliban's opponent, continued to enjoy the support of Russia and Iran. ..The overland journey through what became the world's top outlaw state, so impoverished that it no longer even features in UN statistics, led from Kandahar to camps in Herat, across the Sabzak Pass into Badghis province, deep into Murghab Canyon and to encounters with those who, having lost livestock and seeds, were stranded in caves without hope of escape. There they subsisted on what would normally be camel fodder.. (KEYSTONE/VII Photo/Daniel Schwartz)