When the Taliban regime fell, international human rights and relief organizations sent their representatives to Afghanistan on fact-finding missions, which revealed life was not that easy for thousands of imprisoned Taliban fighters.

One of the most notorious POW detention centers was located in the town of Sheberghan (Shebargan) in Jowzjan Province, 120 kilometers west of Mazar-e-Sharif. The prison was controlled by the Uzbek militia under the command of the powerful warlord, Gen. Rashid Dostum. In February 2002, the facility was hugely overcrowded, with well over three thousand inmates, of which about two thousand were so-called local Taliban, i.e. Afghans, and the rest were foreign, mostly Pakistani, fighters. They all were held in three huge blocks. Conditions were appalling and the inmates dreamed of being taken to Cuba where the U.S. military were conducting their investigation at the Guantanamo Bay detention center. The Sheberghan prison complex had a high mortality rate despite aid from the International Red Cross. The camp's only doctor said prisoners suffered from dysentery, pneumonia, and tuberculosis, and medicines were in short supply. Prison wardens said it would be unfair to keep the enemies alive by giving them medicines that should rather be directed to help the local population who suffered under the Taliban regime.

Yet international pressure bore its fruit: cooking and washing facilities were set up and journalists were invited to record the improvements.

Former Taliban fighters take a shower and wash clothes in a metal container set up on the territory of the Sheberghan camp. February 2002.