Shir Ahmad, 12, spends all day working in the pitch darkness of a coalmine in the Dara-e Suf district of northern Samangan province.
His face black with dust, he said he spent his time loading a donkey with coal to then transport to the surface.
Leading three donkeys out of the mine, Najibullah, a 13-year-old from Tor village in Dara-e Suf, also said that he needed the wages to support his family.
According to Khair Mohammad Akhtarzada, the deputy governor of Samangan, more than 1,000 of some 5,000 people working in these mines are underage.
He said that the government only controlled four out of the hundreds of mines currently operational in the region. The others were unlicensed and did not maintain even minimal safety standards. This meant that accidents were common and often fatal.
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