Desperate Hunger in Afghanistan: Stories of Struggle and Loss

2023-12-21 16:19:47

image copyrightBBC/AAMIR PEERZADA

Article informationAuthor, Yogita LimayeRole, Afghanistan Correspondent, BBC News

4 hours

«The last time I was able to buy milk for my baby was two months ago. I usually fill his bottle with tea. “Or I soak bread in tea and then give it to them.”

The words were spoken by Sohaila Niyazi, sitting on the floor of her adobe house atop a hill in the east of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan.

There are no roads to get to where the woman lives, so you have to walk along steep mud paths through which sewage flows.

Sohaila is a widow. She has six children, the youngest being a 15-month-old girl named Husna Fakeeri.

The tea the woman is referring to is the one traditionally drunk in Afghanistan, made with green leaves and hot water, without milk or sugar. It does not contain anything that provides nutritional value for your baby.

Sohaila is one of 10 million people who stopped receiving emergency food assistance from the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) last year, due to its huge funding gap.

It is a crushing blow, especially for the approximately two million female-headed households in Afghanistan.

Under the Taliban regime, Sohaila cannot go out to work to feed her family.

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Harrowing stories

“There have been nights when we haven’t had anything to eat and I have had to tell my children: ‘Where can I go begging at this time of night?'” said the mother.

“They sleep hungry and when they wake up I ask myself: what should I do? If a neighbor brings us some food and the children scramble around saying: ‘give me, give me’. I try to divide it between them,” she said.

To calm her hungry baby, the woman admitted that she gives her “sleeping medicine.”

“I give it to him so he doesn’t wake up and ask for milk because I don’t have milk to give him. After giving her the medicine, she sleeps from one morning to the next,” Sohaila said.

“Sometimes I check if she is alive or dead,” he revealed.

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When asked about the medication he gives the little girl, the BBC team discovered that it is an antihistamine (common anti-allergy). Sedation is a side effect.

The doctors consulted explained that, although it is less harmful than the tranquilizers and antidepressants that some Afghan parents administer to their hungry children, in higher doses the medication can cause respiratory distress.

Sohaila said her husband was killed in crossfire in Panjshir province in 2022, in fighting between Taliban forces and those resisting them.

After her husband’s death, the woman relied heavily on WFP aid: flour, oil and beans.

However, the UN program says it can currently only provide supplies to three million people, less than a quarter of those suffering from acute hunger in the Central Asian country.

Sohaila totally depends on donations from family or neighbors.

For much of the interview, little Husna is quiet and inactive.

She is moderately malnourished and is one of the more than three million children who suffer from this condition in the country, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef).

More than a quarter of those three million children suffer from severe acute malnutrition. It is the worst that has ever happened in Afghanistan, they said from the UN.

image copyrightBBC/AAMIR PEERZADA

From bad to worse

And while malnutrition ravages the youngest, the aid that had prevented the collapse of the country’s health care has had to be withdrawn.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was paying the salaries of health workers and financing medicines and food in more than 30 hospitals, a provisional emergency measure implemented after the regime change in 2021.

However, he now does not have the resources to continue and has had to withdraw help from most health centers, including the Indira Gandhi Children’s Hospital in Kabul, the only specialized center for children in Afghanistan.

«The salary of doctors and nurses now comes from the government. “All of them have had their salaries cut in half,” said Dr. Mohammad Iqbal Sadiq, medical director of the Taliban-appointed hospital.

The center also closed its outpatient department and provides services only to those who need to be admitted.

image copyrightBBC/AAMIR PEERZADA

The hospital’s malnutrition ward is full and many days they have to accommodate more than one child in a bed.

In a corner, Sumaya is sitting. At 14 months old she weighs as much as a newborn baby and her face is wrinkled like that of a much older person.

Next to her is Mohammad Shafi. She weighs half of what she should at 18 months old. Her father was a Taliban fighter and died in a traffic accident, while her mother died of illness.

As he passes by his bed, his elderly grandmother, Hayat Bibi, approaches anxiously, wanting to tell her story.

She said the Taliban helped her take her grandson to the hospital, but she doesn’t know how they will manage now.

«I trust in God’s mercy, but I have nowhere to turn. “I am totally lost,” said Hayat Bibi, her eyes filling with tears.

«I am also fighting. “My head hurts so much I feel like it could explode,” she added.

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No answers from power

The BBC asked the Taliban government’s main spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, what they are doing to get more support from the international community.

“Aid has been cut because the economies of donor countries are not doing well. There have been two great calamities: covid and the war in Ukraine. So we can’t expect help from them. We won’t get help by talking to them,” she replied.

“We have to become self-sufficient,” he said.

«Our economy has stabilized and we are awarding mining contracts that will create thousands of jobs. But of course I’m not saying aid should be cut because we still have problems,” he added.

Asked if perhaps Taliban policies are also part of the problem and if donors do not want to give money to a country whose authorities impose severe restrictions on women, he replied: “If aid is used as a pressure tool, the Islamic Emirate will safeguard their values at any price.”

“Afghans have made great sacrifices in the past to protect their values and will also endure the aid cut,” Mujahid said.

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In a dead end

The official’s words will not comfort many Afghans. Two-thirds of the population do not know where their next meal will come from.

In a cold, damp one-room house on a Kabul street, the BBC team finds a woman who said the Taliban have prevented her from selling fruit, vegetables, socks and other items on the street.

The woman, whose husband died during the war and with four children to support, also claimed that she was arrested once for going out alone. She does not want to be identified.

“They should at least allow us to work and earn an honest living,” she declared as she burst into tears.

“I swear to God that we are not going to go out and do bad things. We only go out to earn food for our children and they harass us like this,” he lamented.

The woman admitted that she has been forced to send her 12-year-old son to work.

“I asked a Taliban brother: ‘What do I feed my children if I don’t earn anything?’ He told me ‘give them poison, but don’t leave the house alone,’” he said.

image copyrightBBC/AAMIR PEERZADA

“On two occasions the Taliban government gave me some money, but it is not enough,” he noted.

Before the Taliban regained power, three-quarters of public spending came from foreign money given directly to the previous government. However, these funds stopped flowing in August 2021, throwing the economy into crisis.

Aid agencies stepped in to provide assistance, but much of that funding has already dried up.

It is difficult to exaggerate the seriousness of the situation that has been seen over the last year.

Millions of people survive on dry bread and water. Some will not survive the winter.

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