Camp Phoenix: Inside Afghanistan's Heroin Hell

This short documentary takes viewers inside Camp Phoenix, one of Kabul's largest drug rehabilitation centres, to examine Afghanistan's growing addiction crisis following the Taliban's return to power in 2021. Through on-the-ground footage, interviews, and firsthand accounts, independent reporter Akshay documents the challenges faced by people living with addiction as international funding disappears and rehabilitation services struggle to operate.

The film also follows Babrak, a former mujahideen fighter and recovering addict who now helps run Camp Phoenix despite severe shortages of staff, medication, and resources. Alongside the stories of those seeking recovery, the film explores how decades of war, poverty, unemployment, and widespread drug availability have contributed to Afghanistan's addiction crisis while highlighting the resilience of those working to offer hope under extraordinarily difficult circumstances.

Note: Since this documentary was released, reports have continued to document serious concerns about Afghanistan's compulsory drug rehabilitation system. Investigations have alleged that some Taliban-run rehabilitation centres rely on forced detention, inadequate medical care, food shortages, physical abuse, and compulsory labour rather than evidence-based addiction treatment. Taliban officials maintain that these programmes are intended to remove drug use from the streets and help people recover, but human rights organizations and journalists have raised ongoing concerns about conditions inside these facilities.

Accompanying Information:

"The Taliban is bringing addicts to Camp Phoenix rehabilitation, one of Kabul's largest rehabilitation centers with 1,000 beds. This rehabilitation camp once was a US military base. In 2015, as a part of a broader effort to combat the rising addiction crisis, the then Afghan government converted it into a rehabilitation center. However, since the Taliban's takeover, all international funding has been halted, and Afghanistan's foreign assets have been frozen. As a result, addicts are now brought to this camp which operates with little to no treatment facilities."

"We are happy being collected. We became human from garbage. We were really not a human. We didn't know whether we were human or animal. Half our life was spent in high and other half of our life was spent in a hangover. We don't know how our life is spent."

"Afghanistan: a nation that has endured over 40 years of war. The two-decade long conflict between NATO and the Taliban left the country in ruins … Decades of war have fueled extreme poverty and widespread unemployment. At the same time, the period saw an exponential rise in Afghanistan's illegal poppy production, generating billions of dollars. According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (2023) report, 80% of the world's illicit smuggled across borders into Russia, China, Europe, and North America."

"As an Afghan, it's really sad for me to see my people suffering from these kind of bad situations. They are living under really, really bad conditions under the bridge and this is the result of war in Afghanistan for 20 years. NATO and their allies and other countries came to Afghanistan. USA invaded Afghanistan and brought all these results and situations ... see what they did to my people."

"The Taliban government claims that since Islam strictly prohibits substance use, it is committed to eradicating addiction across all 34 provinces of Afghanistan."

"This center struggles to provide even the most basic medical care. Those undergoing recovery often experience difficult withdrawal symptoms and the lack of medicines makes harder for them to heal."