Almost 14,000 newborns have died from lack of food since the start of the year
The expected humanitarian disaster is happening. Half of the population is already in a situation of food insecurity. International agencies are taking measures to contain the impact. Meanwhile, Moscow has accredited the first diplomat of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
Kabul (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis is going from bad to worse.
Since the Western withdrawal and the Taliban return to power, 95 per cent of the population has inadequate access to food, analysts say.
Over 85 per cent of families who previously had an income said they did not receive a salary in February, and at least 23 million people (more than half of the population) are already in a condition of food insecurity.
Bread, sugar, and even tea are a luxury. At least 26 mothers and 13,700 newborns have died from lack of food since the start of the year, according to the Health Ministry.
In a country with more than 900,000 widows according to reliefweb, women and children are forced to beg to support their families.
In Herat the Ministry of Public Works has taken hundreds of children off the streets and put them into training camps in cooperation with international organisations where they can learn a trade, ToloNews reports. Children will get US a month and will be able to continue their studies for six months.
Other steps include UNICEF cash transfer programmes for the most vulnerable families who can freely dispose of the money. According to a recent report by the agency, the money goes mainly for buy food, shoes and clothes for children, medicine, wood or other fuels to heat the home.
At the same time, since Western media is focused on the conflict in Ukraine, the Taliban continue their repression of society undisturbed.
Girls have been banned from school, and women will not be able to travel abroad without a male chaperon.
The BBC, Deutsche Welle and other international media have seen their programmes in Urdu, Pashto and Persian taken off the air and are no longer available on Afghan channels.
Public parks have also been sex-segregated: women have access three days a week and men the other four, including weekends.
Men are also required to wear traditional clothing and grow a beard. The Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice is threatening to fire anyone who does not respect the new rules.
In case anyone had doubts, the Taliban have not changed and have not become moderate.
Allowing girls to have an education, as the Taliban had promised at first, would have been a game changer. But on 23 March, when schools reopened for the start of the new year after more than seven months, teenager girls were turned away from high schools.
In protest, the United States boycotted a scheduled meeting in Doha to discuss key economic issues with the Taliban and unfreeze Afghan bank accounts.
The country’s current financial situation and lack of liquidity are the main cause of its disastrous humanitarian situation.
To counter the situation, the Taliban have turned eastward. Yesterday and today, a summit of the region's foreign ministers was held in China.
The meeting, the third of its kind, was held in Tunxi, in the Chinese province of Anhui, and was attended by officials from Pakistan, Russia, Iran, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
China stressed that a prosperous and stable Afghanistan was in the interest not only of the Afghan people, but also of the entire region.
On the sidelines of the meeting, Afghan, Chinese and Pakistani officials plan to discuss economic relations between the three countries.
For his part, Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, said that the growing trade ties between Afghanistan and neighbouring nations are contributing to the potential international recognition of the Taliban regime.
Today the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan had its first diplomat accredited in Moscow.
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