Afghan Hunger Strikers Demand Cease-Fire: ‘Our Blood Is Finished’

KABUL, Afghanistan — Within 24 hours of a recent suicide bombing in Helmand Province, which added at least 14 names to the long list of the dead in a bitterly contested corner of Afghanistan, a group of local activists began a sit-in at the site of the carnage.

In their moment of anger and sorrow, they asked not for revenge, but for peace.

Over the following days, mothers and fathers of victims came to pour out their hearts and to support the protest, in a tent pitched near the field in the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, where last week a suicide bomber drove a car full of explosives into a crowd leaving a wrestling match. Emboldened, the protest organizers announced a “long march” to bring the message of peace to the Taliban, who control much of the province.

On Thursday, after the Taliban told them not to come, the activists in the tent said they would instead go on a hunger strike until both sides in the war declared at least two days of cease-fire.

“We are not asking for much,” said Iqbal Khaibar, one of the organizers. “Just two days.”

Mr. Khaibar said that over the past two days they had reached out to both the Taliban and the Afghan government to ask them to allow a peace march. “With this move, both sides would have come a step closer, a movement would have started for reducing the mistrust,” he said.

The local authorities did not answer. The Taliban put out a clear rejection, telling the protesters to direct their march to Camp Shorab, the largest military base in the province, where forces from the Afghan National Army and the American military are stationed.

In the 1950s, Helmand was sometimes called “Little America,” because of ambitious dam and canal projects there. But in recent years, it has become synonymous with the devastation of the long war, and the lives of residents in most of its districts have been uprooted.