Sharifullah Sharafat is a correspondent for RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan.
In villages and towns across Afghanistan, grieving families mourning the loss of fathers, sons, brothers, and husbands in the country's fratricidal war are united in demanding peace for their country.
The United Nations says an estimated 6,000 residents of Chinarto, a remote district in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan, cannot access medical services and face food shortages because of the road closure by the Taliban.
Afghans in frontline provinces now demand a lasting cease-fire. They are hoping their lives, defined by the misery and anguish caused by fighting, will change for the better if all warring sides agree on turning the partial truce into a lasting cease-fire.
Afghan troops besieged by the Taliban for more than a week in a remote district of central Afghanistan are desperate for reinforcements and help.
Traders in a restive Afghan province are reluctant to abandon using the Pakistani currency even after local authorities have threatened them with possible arrests.
Tarinkot, a town of some 70,000 residents, narrowly escaped being overrun by hundreds of Taliban fighters in September 2016. Still the town is under a virtual Taliban siege with the rebels controlling territories around the beleaguered town.
Afghanistan's Zabul Province is impoverished and deeply conservative. It is also a Taliban stronghold.
Government forces and insurgents are using access to irrigation water as leverage to pressure civilians into supporting them or force their opponents out of their villages and communities.
In a new strategy employed by Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan, medical clinics and hospitals are being held hostage across an entire province for use as bargaining chips to put pressure on government authorities.
