Friday, March 29

First months of Taliban power in Afghanistan: hunger, crisis and violence



Farid, an Afghan refugee who came to Europe a couple of years ago, he’s worried about his family, in case they will be good or bad, in case they have gotten something to eat these days. He worries because he knows little about them, because he can hardly talk to his mother and sister once a week, but your concern is different from before.

In August, when the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, he panicked as he tried to guide his family from the province of Ghazni toward Acceptance, where they would be somewhat safer, Farid thought, because there were many more people there and, even if the insurgents were looking for them, they would have more facilities to hide.

Now, four months later After the Taliban victory, this panic has faded. The worry remains, sure, but now it looks more like the resignation. “They are still in Kabul and they are fine. There was no way they could leave Afghanistan in summer … but hey, the other day they told me they will try to go out in spring, first towards Iran and then to Turkey“Farid explains. Now in winter, with the frozen flyway, there is little that can be done.

The cold that arrived with the autumn and that, according to estimates, could reach -25 degrees, has turned Afghanistan into a frozen jail for the hundreds of thousands who wanted to escape the Taliban. A prison, moreover, plunging into the abyss.

The numbers indicate this: according to data from United Nations, the 95% of Afghans who are still in their country “do not consume enough food”, some 23 million people (55% of the population) faces extreme levels of hunger and almost 9 million are at risk of suffering famine.

Also Read  Noelia Romero, key witness of 'Barçagate': "It is a typical scheme of corruption"

This is one humanitarian catastrophe which is already explained in the present, and which has been caused by the huida de capitales, the prohibition of the Taliban government from accessing Executive funds above, and the absolute freezing of the entire international humanitarian aid towards Afghanistan after the insurgent conquest. 75% of the budget the previous government came from international aid. Overnight, this money has disappeared.

“The Taliban never had a map about how they would rule the country without outside help. What is happening today is a predictable result of your decision in the summer to push for a military victory rather than an agreed transition, “writes expert Kate Clark, a member of the Afghanistan Analyst Network.

By surprise

In fact, their victory was so swift and so surprising that even the Taliban themselves were caught off guard. Once in power, the new Executive is having serious difficulties governing and making decisions – partly due to internal disagreements, but also because of the international pressure-.

Access to education for women, for example, is restricted, but only partially. In cities, young women are allowed to go to school and universities, but always separated from men. In the rural zonesHowever, they are prohibited from doing so. The Taliban say it’s something temporal, but doubts are widespread: in the regions that the group controlled before the victory over Kabul, girls over 12 years old they could no longer access school.

“I cannot give a date, but this problem will be solved soon,” the Taliban government spokesman said, Zabihula Mujahid, in December.

Also Read  The US wants to recover its fighter plane that crashed... before China

From committing attacks to trying to avoid them

Once settled in the palaces of Kabul, at the end of August, the Taliban made a promise. The war Afghanistan had been involved in since 1979 had finished. The violence was ending. Peace returned.

The promise, however, has not been kept, and the country’s new masters have gone from commit attacks themselves in the last decades to be now cops who should avoid them. The one who executes them now is the Islamic State (IS)whose interpretation of Islam is so radical that it considers the Taliban weak and traitors.

In recent months, IS attacks against rival militants and civilians have been constant, and the Taliban have been unable to do anything to prevent them. In fact, at the end of the year just ended, the new government sent a few thousand of its militiamen to the province of Nangahar, on the border with Pakistan, where Taliban and ISIS members fight in the same way that, a few months ago, the Taliban did against the soldiers of the previous Executive.

“When several days go by and we don’t talk, I have a hard time. But in the end you just get used to it to this. It is difficult, but now nothing can be done. Let’s see if in the spring … “Farid sighs.


www.informacion.es

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *