Pakistan: the ravages of the heroine on the traffickers' road

Between two trucks on an abandoned railway from Karachi, constelled with incandescent waste, adolescents shoot under the blashed gaze of kids en route to school.Coating of the Afghan heroine, Pakistan has become addicted to this opiate in the heart of an AIDS epidemic.

And the trend is only worsening with record production this year of opium (5.500 tonnes), basic ingredient of heroin, in the Afghan fields even before the withdrawal of NATO forces planned in 2014.

Afghanistan produces 90% of the global heroine.And almost half of the production passed through Pakistan before being exported clandestinely in Europe or asia hidden largely in containers from Karachi, a sprawling port of 20 million inhabitants on the Arabian Sea.

But drugs don't just go to Pakistan: a game remains there and even more wounds the already gaping wounds of misery.The country of 180 million souls now has nearly a million heroin consumers, almost half by injection.

"You find all the drugs you want in Karachi," says Shahzad Ali, the azimuated gaze and the left hand swollen by the repeated injections.Like others, he staggers on the old railway from the Musa Colony district where young people have gotten into the habit of shooting themselves near the mounds of filth still smoking that other disadvantages search for everything that couldbe consumed or sold.

Sitting behind the counter of his mobile clinic, Mohammad Imran distributes new drug addicts to drugs for the NGO Pakistan Society.Ex-junkie and reseller, he also made the sidewalk for years, transvestite as a woman, before winning.

"I feel what they feel, I understand their problems," blows this fifties witness the development of the heroine in the disadvantaged neighborhoods where a shoot is barely 50 or 100 rupees (between 35 and 70 centsEuro), a fraction of its price in the West.

"Pakistan, a transit country, has become over time a consumer," confirms Cesar Guedes, head of the UN drugs agency (UNODC) in Pakistan."Traffickers are paid in cash or drugs, whether they sell when they need money...The heroine is therefore abundant and inexpensive, "he explains.

Sering and AIDS exchanges, a toxic cocktail

If Imran was shot for twenty years, in addition to the sidewalk, he has never been contaminated by AIDS, and he thanks the sky.

On the other hand, the virus has not spared Tarek Abbas, heroinomaniac with dug cheeks, a hoarse breath, as granular, as voice.Diagnosed HIV positive two years ago, he drags his life today as a burden in the streets of Karachi.

"My family abandoned me, people don't even want to sit with me anymore...I would just like to commit suicide, but it's +haram +, a sin, in Islam, "he says.

Tarek is not alone.At the "Pays des Purs", almost 30% of heroinomaniacs per injection are HIV positive, one of the highest rates in the world, against 11% in 2005.To try to curb the crisis, NGOs distribute new syringes in the poor neighborhoods of Karachi.

"At the beginning people said that we were promoting drugs, but they have since understood that heroinomaniacs always find a way of having their fixed," explains Dr. Maria Atif, little bright woman with a hijab faceWho works at Pakistan Society.

Heroinomaniacs pass every day in its offices to pick syringes and condoms, wash, drink tea and offer a salutary break before diving back into the meanders of a city prey to all trafficking that feed a bloody gang war.

Heroine against cocaine, the "new deal"

In the shadow of this crisis, Karachi has become in recent years the theater of a new-chased-crossed between the Afghan heroine intended for Europe and Asia and cocaine imported from South America.

In 2010, the Pakistani authorities seized cocaine for the first time, and in number (226 kilos), which fueled rumors of collaboration between Latin American cartels and the Pakistani drugs, even the Taliban whoare partially financed by this traffic.

Heroine and cocaine therefore arrive in whole bags and intersect in the port of Karachi."Is it a barter"?, Wonders Akbar Khan Hoti, head of the anti-Drogue unit at the Ministry of the Interior.

In the first wearing of Pakistan, local customs have only one sniff dog, according to internal sources, and sorely lack giant scanners capable of filtering the content of the 3.000 containers who pass there daily.

Since the beginning of the year, "more than a ton of cocaine", according to M.Hoti, was seized at the port of Karachi, a sign of growing demand for white powder in the "country of pure".

And every weekend in the wealthy circles of Karachi, young Pakistanis deceive boredom by unrolling coke lines during select festivals or meetings in small committees.

"Cocaine is definitely fashionable, especially among young people aged 25 to 35, who seek to escape.There is nothing else to do, "says Hussain (assumed name, editor's note) a young executive returned a few years ago in Pakistan after studying abroad.

"In recent years, the consumption of cocaine and amphetamine A on the rise in the rich," confirms a senior Pakistani official of the fight against the fight against.

At more than 10.000 rupees The gram (70 euros), the equivalent of a minimum wage month, cocaine mirages remain inaccessible to the va-no-pieds, proof of the waterproofing between social classes in a country with feudal hints where everyonefled opposite realities that meet without ever touching.