The Hazara people have long been repressed and deprived of services. Could a solar power plant offer a glimmer of hope?
Carved into the cliffs behind Bamiyan town centre in Afghanistan's central highlands, massive holes scar the homeland of the Hazara people, a Shia minority who live between the Hindu Kush and Koh-i-Baba mountain ranges. The hollows once housed statues of Buddha, until the Taliban infamously set dynamite to them in 2001.
But within a few kilometres of these monuments to tyranny stand symbols of renewal rows of solar panels bringing stable electricity to the homes of local people for the first time and with them the chance of improving their lives.
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