Kunar province, Afghanistan – It was a Sunday evening in late August when Hayat Khan returned to his home in the tiny village of Aurak Dandila. The 55-year-old farmer had been celebrating a wedding at a neighbour’s house – one of just nine stone homes built into the mountainside.

Partially concealed behind corn stalks and tall grass deep in the mountains of Afghanistan's Kunar province, Aurak Dandila overlooks a patchwork of small farms, where the villagers grow corn and beans, walnuts and apricots. A stream cuts through the fields, and children would jump from the giant boulders that line it into the frigid, crystal-clear water.

Everyone in the village belonged to one extended family and thought of their quiet, peaceful spot overlooking the valley as a “little piece of heaven”.

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