Looming disaster in Afghanistan
THE second winter has begun following the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan, which has been under Taliban control since August 2021 after two decades of war, which left the country ravaged and devastated.
Unfortunately, no country has to date recognized the current Taliban government, resultantly the ordinary Afghans are suffering badly.
The people of Afghanistan appear doomed to face disaster. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 led the country into massive bloodshed and the exodus of Afghan refugees into neighbouring Pakistan and Iran.
The decade-long Soviet occupation caused immense suffering. The withdrawal of the Soviets resulted in internecine Afghan tribal warfare for supremacy.
Peace finally returned in the late 1990s with the Taliban establishing their rule. Unfortunately, the harsh implementation of their interpretation of Shariah won them few friends.
Only Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE recognized the Taliban regime then while the rest of the world remained aghast at the severe rule of the Taliban, denying freedom to women to receive education or seek employment.
In the wake of the 9/11 debacle, US-led NATO forces invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and wreaked havoc with their combined might.
The Taliban suffered defeat but not decimation. Regrouping and rearming, they conducted guerrilla attacks on the NATO forces, causing severe attrition.
Subsequently, another protagonist jumped into the fray—the Daesh, who after suffering heavy losses in Syria and Iraq, found a foothold in Afghanistan but the Taliban opposed them tooth and nail.
The plight of the common Afghan remained miserable. Meanwhile, the US and its allies decided to cut their losses and after two decades of their bloody hold on Afghanistan, which was slowly slipping away, they decided to withdraw.
The Taliban managed to establish their rule but apprehensive of their track record of enforcing draconian laws, the world did not come to the aid of the war-ravaged Afghans.
Severe food insecurity, raging global pandemic COVID-19 and inclement weather made life unbearable for the ordinary Afghans.
To add insult to injury, Washington and Europe blocked Kabul’s access to more than $9 billion in Afghan central bank assets largely held in the U.S.
Federal Reserve after the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan in August 2021. The World Bank and International Monetary Fund also suspended about $1.2 billion in aid money they were supposed to release for Afghanistan.
In the second winter since the Taliban took over and freezing of foreign funds, millions of Afghans are a step away from famine.
Taliban have attempted various overtures to the world to be accorded recognition.
Even trying a charm offensive through diplomatic engagements to assuage international concerns about its treatment of women and girls, among other aspects of its rule.
Alas! They failed to impress the world. To add misery to the woes of the Afghans, international attention got diverted because of the war in Ukraine and humanitarian organizations started making fervent appeals to donors to come to the aid of the Ukrainians, leaving the hapless Afghans in the lurch.
The prevailing situation has become so wretched that BBC has reported that Afghans are giving their hungry children medicines to sedate them.
In pitiable interviews recorded by the renowned news organization, a tearful father states that since his hungry children keep crying, refusing to sleep and they don’t sleep, he procures sedatives from the pharmacy and gives the pills to the children, to make them drowsy and not feel the pangs of hunger.
In the news clip, he shows a strip of alprazolam — tranquilisers usually prescribed to treat anxiety disorders.
Other Afghan fathers showed the news team, strips of escitalopram and sertraline tablets, which they said that they were giving their children.
They are usually prescribed to treat depression and anxiety. Medical specialists opine that when given to young children who do not get adequate nutrition, drugs such as these can cause liver damage, along with a host of other problems like chronic fatigue, sleep and behaviour disorders.
If this is pathetic, it is even more woeful that many Afghans are selling their kidneys to feed their children.
The amount they receive for the vital organ is pittance and most of it goes into repaying loans they had taken to feed their children.
The current cost of a kidney is 240,000 Afghanis ($2,700). Even more despicable is the fact that some Afghan parents are forced to sell their daughters, some of them as young as two years of age.
Afghans have been forced to sell their daughters for as low as 10,000 Afghanis which is less than half the price of a kidney.
They mourn the loss of their dignity but rationalize that it is the last resort for the survival of their other children.
The US and Europe persist with financial sanctions and continue the freeze of Afghan assets in their banks, while the Afghans continue to suffer. 23 million Afghan citizens have become the victims of extreme food insecurity.
Additionally, while the risk of famine was once restricted to rural areas, 10 out of 11 of Afghanistan’s most densely populated urban areas face emergency levels of food insecurity.
The continuing deterioration of the economy threatens to heighten the risk of extremism, while the paralysis of the banking sector could push more of the financial system into unregulated informal money exchanges which can facilitate terrorism, trafficking and drug smuggling.
Additionally, the neglect of the Afghan population will primarily affect Afghanistan besides infecting the region.
Ironically, Afghanistan is back to square one, with the return of the Taliban, while the country is once again in their brutal obscurantist grip with their archaic, draconian and cruel laws.
The ground reality is that the Taliban once again established their government on the basis of the rule of Sharia exactly on the pattern dictated by their founder Mullah Omar that prevailed in Afghanistan during 1996-2001.
UN and other humanitarian agencies may be using the leverage of aid to force the hand of Taliban into adopting moderation but the looming disaster for ordinary Afghans is becoming a harsh reality and the poor people require immediate help before they perish totally. Will the world remain oblivious to their suffering?
—The Author is a Retired Group Captain of PAF, who has written several books on China.
