Phil Borges          

       
      Pakistan - July 2001
 


Village of Balanguru in the Kalash valley of Rumbur

   
 
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In July of 2001 I traveled to the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan to visit a small group of animists called the Kalash. Living in the Eastern Hindu Kush Range near the Afghan border and now numbering just under three thousand, the Kalash represent one of the last non-Islamic minorities in Pakistan. Considered infidels by the Muslim majority, the Kalash have had to fight to keep their culture intact and their beautiful mountain valleys from being logged. Residing near the border of Afghanistan, the Kalash have witnessed hundreds of Afghan Refugees flee the civil war in Afghanistan and the repressive government of the Taliban. Even prior to September 11th there were almost two million Afghan Refugees in Pakistan.