Afghanistan was abandoned by US forces a year ago. Now, many of its people are living in dire straits.
Nawuzullah (in blue) shows his mud house in a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan. /Liu Youzhi/CGTN
Near Kabul International Airport, Nawuzullah led me to a low-rise mud house where there has been no electricity or water since his family fled from the conflict-hit eastern Afghanistan six years ago. The father of four, including a five-month-old infant, earns about $70 a month by collecting swill for cows.
“No other job at all,” Nawuzullah said. “Food sometimes is not enough.”
At the end of 2021, there were about 3.5 million Afghans like Nawuzullah internally displaced due to decades of turmoil and recurrent natural disasters. Food insecurity is affecting 19 million Afghans, nearly half the population, the chief of the UN humanitarian affairs Martin Griffiths told a media forum by CGTN and Afghanistan’s Shamshad in August, calling on the world to join hands and stand in solidarity with the Afghan people.
Walking into Kabul’s biggest market Mondai, you may think acute hunger sounds far from reality. There appears no shortage of food – rather, abundant essentials. Yet, beneficiaries of the World Food Programme at one of Kabul’s distribution centers will tell you that small businesses are down, most families have limited or no income, and purchasing power is vanishing. A mother of six children waiting in the line for flour and oil said the people of Afghanistan currently need more humanitarian aid.
Global attention has turned to the Ukraine crisis, said WFP coordinator Sami Alokozai, adding that the world is no longer paying attention to Afghanistan, where many people are suffering from economic crisis.
From the food blockade in the Black Sea, to the ongoing threat at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, the Russia-Ukraine conflict has made headlines for the first half of 2022 and dominated discussion in the West.
“International attention (to Afghanistan) has declined because of the Biden administration’s inability to deal with the issue of Afghanistan and the shameful exit the US had last year,” Muhammad Sulaiman Bin Shah, former Afghan Deputy Minister of Industry and Commerce said.
The US still holds $7 billion in Afghan assets – assets which would have provided relief amid the humanitarian crisis triggered by the US withdrawal.
Alongside NATO allies, the US military campaign in Afghanistan has reportedly caused at least 47,000 civilian deaths. Not only has Washington not paid compensation to the Afghan people, but it has leveled sanctions on the country out of frustration with the Taliban.
At CGTN’s forum on humanitarian crisis and peaceful reconstruction, Abudul Qahar Balkhi, spokesperson for the interim government’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the Taliban has been in direct communication with the US, and has requested the “illegal and immoral sanctions” be lifted.
“We expect they’d be released without any conditions attached so that the economy of Afghanistan can function,” he told the forum.
Any delay inflicts more pain on the Afghan economy, which has largely been funded by external resources over the decades. Now, it’s in free fall.
Major US sanctions have spurred a multi-layer crisis. One is the severe liquidity crisis; another is the banking crisis. Many infrastructure projects by the World Bank and other organizations have been halted. Some 700,000 people were reportedly directly involved in the value chains of those projects, and the labor market has deteriorated significantly. Analysts believe sanctions have not affected the current authorities so much as the Afghan people and the food they can put on the table.
Water insecurity has also troubled the country. Hit by drought, and with supply infrastructure neglected, water delivery has collapsed.
The Washington Post wrote that the US “national-building project” in Afghanistan, instead of bringing stability and peace, “inadvertently built a corrupt, dysfunctional Afghan government that remains dependent on US military power for its survival.”
Momina (in black) waits in line to get her tanks filled with water from a well on the other side of the wall. /Zhou Jiaxin/CGTN
Kabul lies in a triangular valley flanked by mountain ranges where many of the impoverished live. Every day, 49-year-old Momina has to walk down the mountain to fetch at least 10 two-liter tanks of water pumped from a well. It’s the only water source for some 500 households in Ko Bala village, on the outskirts of Kabul.
Many families had signed a 10-year contract to get water supplied by a private company. But three years ago, the service collapsed and the 33,000 Afghani, or $370 each family had paid was lost. “No companies or authorities promised us anything,” the mother of three said.
Momina has slipped before and injured her head and leg. She also has poor vision, but she continues to carry water home. “I just let my children go to school and study, and my husband is also weak,” she said.
The family wants to resettle down the hill like many others, but Momina says they don’t have the money. Her husband can only provide food by trolleying goods for others.
Job opportunities are critical for many Afghan families. For Nawuzullah, returning to his hometown is not an option anymore. “I know the conditions of our relatives there are even worse than ours,” he said.
The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan has warned that those internally displaced would face difficulty in accessing jobs, education, health and livelihood.
While the Taliban struggles with its economic roadmap and political image, which has been overshadowed by women’s rights and education, the world should pay attention to the Afghan people, who are burdened with poverty and the fallout from sanctions. Food and water insecurity as well as unemployment is mounting, and the humanitarian situation could exacerbate as winter comes.
