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Afghan authorities begin destroying poppy fields
Afghan interim authorities have begun destroying poppy fields despite violent protests from farmers who want to harvest the heroin-producing crop.
UN Drug Control Programme country director Bernard Frahi said Afghan security forces had been mowing down the lucrative flowers in Nangarhar, Helmand and Uruzgan provinces since Monday.
They say 16 people had been killed in clashes between angry farmers and security forces after the UN-backed interim government under cabinet chairman Hamid Karzai announced its poppy eradication drive.
Afghanistan was the world's biggest producer of opium, the raw ingredient of heroin, until the Taliban regime effectively stopped poppy cultivation last year.
12/04/2002 09:03:02 | ABC Radio Australia News
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