Dawn light catches a gleam of the Bamiyan river and irrigation canals below cliffs in the Bamiyan Valley, the Hazarajat. Although the farms in the valley with access to river water are prospering and producing fruit, wheat, and potato crops, the dry land farming in the Hazarajat failed for three years in a row during the devastating drought from 1999-2002. Bamiyan Valley is located at the edge of the Koh-i-Baba range, the end of the Hindu Kush, in the Central Highlands. Most of the people of this region are of the Hazara tribe, and are Shi'a Moslems who have been persecuted for centuries by many of the Pashtun rulers of Afghanistan, who are from the Sunni sect. They most recently suffered at the hand of the Taliban, who tried for years to ethnically cleanse the region of its Shi'a people.
