Bamiyan (Afghanistan) (AFP)
The archaeological treasures of the Afghan province of Bamiyan have suffered from war, the Taliban and looters, but today it is rampant erosion due to climate change that is eating them away.
Seen from the city, the pink cliff of the Bamiyan Buddhas, destroyed by the Taliban in 2001, seems intact with its multitude of caves which once sheltered small temples, statues and cells of monks.
Facing it, the remains of the fortress of Shahr-e Gholghola, perched since the 6th century on a hill watching over Bamiyan, survivor of the passage of Genghis Khan 600 years later.
To the east, Shar-e Zohak, a citadel guarding access to the valley of this central province of Afghanistan, and whose raw bricks, cocoa color, slowly melt in the sandy rock that gave them life .
These structures "are in danger of collapsing and suffering severe erosion," warned the Afghan state in 2016 in a UNESCO report. The phenomenon, whose impact on the Bamiyan site, although listed as World Heritage by Humanity, was not noted until 2013, is directly linked to climate change.
"The erosion processes are much faster, the rains are more devastating and the wind erosion more significant, which has an extremely strong impact on the sites", explains to AFP Philippe Marquis, the director of the French Archaeological Delegation in Afghanistan.
This specialist, who has explored the region for decades, underlines that Afghanistan "is very fragile geologically, all the more since the plant cover has decreased a lot" under the action of man.
A French imaging company, Iconem, has studied Shar-e Zohak, concluding according to the archaeologist that "the destructions due to erosion have considerably increased in the last thirty years".
- "Cultural heritage" -
This climate change was not lost on Baqe Ghulami, 21, a farmer from the Saikhand district (North), who came to admire the cliff of the Buddhas after a visit to the city's bazaar.
"We've seen the weather change in recent years. Now the summers are warmer and the winters are harsher," he notes. He bitterly regrets the loss of the Buddhas, two giants of 38 and 55 meters, pulverized methodically.
For his friend, Habibullah, it does not matter that these "idols" vomited by the Taliban were "built by another religion, it is our history". And an object of pride for all the inhabitants. Like Rubaba, a 19-year-old student, who claims the place as "our cultural heritage".
From the empty caves, you can see on the other side of the city the future Cultural Center, which has not stopped seeing the light of day since its launch in 2015.
The architectural project, placed under the sign of "the eternal presence of absence", will perhaps, within a year or two, introduce its visitors to the need to conserve their heritage.
"It's good to have visitors, but you need guides, information," said Ali Reza Mushfiq, 26, director of the Department of Archeology at Bamiyan University. Starting with that of his students, who lack books, and their teachers of internet access, in this poor and difficult to access province.
The archaeologist readily admits that "erosion is increasing", but according to him the greatest danger is "human influence on the site", also threatened by looters, very active in Afghanistan.
The Buddhas and the fortress of Shar-e Gholghola are now guarded. The latter, cleaned of mines and summarily fitted out, saw 2,500 visitors parading under its lonely tower plagued by time and the elements.
- "Destroy sites" -
"We must also teach the local population how not to destroy the sites", notes Mr. Mushfiq, while pointing the finger at people using former small temples or cells of monks "to park animals or store fodder".
A stone's throw from the cave of the big Buddha, at the foot of the cliff studded with openings, Ammanullah, 37, carries rubble in a wheelbarrow.
He lives in one of these houses made of odds and ends, with plastic sheets as windows. He lived in a cave where his parents, refugees, had found shelter. Before building his house. Others extended theirs from an old cell of monks.
"We are 18 families here, without the right to build anything more, and without being offered anything else," he explains. There is running water, but the electricity comes from small individual solar panels.
With his neighbors he lives in an area supposed to have been emptied of its occupants. "We would leave if we were given a house," says Ammanullah.
Philippe Marquis does not minimize the impact of urban pressure, insecurity and looting on the preservation of sites. But "even if it is dramatic, it is much less than the destruction due to erosion, with sites that have completely disappeared," he observes.
And to cite his exploration of a fort in the Wakhan corridor, a high altitude valley in the northeast of the country, that climate change is likely to wipe off the maps: there, "if we don't move, it nothing will remain in ten years. "
© 2020 AFP