LOOMING DISASTER IN AFGHANISTAN

LOOMING DISASTER IN AFGHANISTAN

 The second winter has begun following the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan. Since August 2021, the country has been under Taliban control, after two decades of war that left it ravaged and devastated.

Unfortunately, the current Taliban government is not recognized by any country, so ordinary Afghans are suffering greatly.

It appears that the people of Afghanistan are doomed to disaster. The Soviet attack of Afghanistan in 1979 drove the country into huge slaughter and the mass migration of Afghan displaced people into adjoining Pakistan and Iran.

The Soviet occupation, which lasted a decade, was terrible. As a result of the Soviet withdrawal, the Afghan tribal war for supremacy turned violent.

In the late 1990s, when the Taliban took power, peace finally returned. Sadly, the severe application of their interpretation of Shariah did not win them many friends.

The Taliban regime was only recognized by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates at the time, while the rest of the world continued to be appalled by its severe rule, which prevented women from obtaining an education or finding work.

In 2001, US-led NATO forces invaded Afghanistan and unleashed their combined might to devastate the country.

The Taliban were defeated but not completely destroyed. They carried out guerrilla attacks on the NATO forces after regrouping and rearming, resulting in significant loss of force.

After that, another protagonist entered the fray: Daesh, which established a foothold in Afghanistan despite fierce opposition from the Taliban after suffering significant losses in Syria and Iraq.

The standard Afghan's situation did not improve. In the meantime, the United States and its allies made the decision to cut their losses and withdraw from Afghanistan after two decades of a bloody hold that was slowly eroding.

The world did not offer assistance to the Afghan people who had been devastated by the war because it was concerned about the Taliban's track record of enforcing harsh laws.

The ordinary Afghans' lives were made unbearable by severe food insecurity, the global pandemic COVID-19, and inclement weather.

After the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August 2021, Washington and Europe blocked Kabul's access to more than $9 billion in assets held by the Afghan central bank and primarily in the U.S. Federal Reserve. Additionally, approximately $1.2 billion in aid funds that were supposed to be distributed to Afghanistan were halted by the World Bank and the IMF.

Millions of Afghans are one step away from starvation in the second winter following the Taliban's takeover and the freezing of foreign funds.

In an effort to gain international recognition, the Taliban have made numerous attempts.

even employing diplomatic engagements as a charm offensive to allay international concerns regarding its treatment of girls and women, among other aspects of its rule.

Alas! The world was not impressed by them. Humanitarian organizations began fervently appealing to donors to come to the aid of Ukrainians, leaving the helpless Afghans in the lurch, diverting international attention from the plight of the Afghan people.

The current situation has become so dire that, according to a BBC report, Afghans are sedating their hungry children with medication.

In pitiful interviews that were recorded by a well-known news organization, a weeping father says that because his hungry children keep crying and refusing to go to sleep, and they don't, he buys sedatives from the pharmacy and gives them to the kids to make them sleepy and not feel hungry.

He shows a strip of alprazolam, a tranquilizer that is typically used to treat anxiety disorders, in the news clip.

The news crew was shown strips of escitalopram and sertraline tablets that other Afghan fathers claimed they were giving to their children.

Typically, they are prescribed for anxiety and depression. Drugs like these, according to medical experts, have the potential to damage the liver and cause a wide range of other issues, such as chronic fatigue, insomnia, and behavioral issues, when administered to young children who do not receive adequate nutrition.

Even more appalling is the fact that many Afghans are selling their kidneys in order to provide for their families.

They receive a pittance for the vital organ, most of which is used to repay loans they took out to feed their children.

A kidney currently costs 240,000 Afghanis, or $2,700. The fact that some Afghan parents are forced to sell their daughters, some as young as two years old, is even more despicable.

For less than half the price of a kidney, Afghans have been forced to sell their daughters for as little as 10,000 Afghanis.

They feel bad about losing their dignity, but they justify it by saying that it is the only way for their other children to live.

While Afghans continue to suffer, the United States and Europe maintain financial sanctions and freeze Afghan bank assets. Extreme food insecurity has resulted in the deaths of 23 million Afghan citizens.

In addition, 10 out of 11 of Afghanistan's most populous urban areas face emergency levels of food insecurity, whereas the risk of famine was once limited to rural areas.

The risk of extremism is only going to get worse as the economy continues to deteriorate, and the banking system's paralysis could force more of the financial system into unregulated informal money exchanges that can facilitate terrorism, drug trafficking, and smuggling.

Additionally, in addition to spreading throughout the region, the neglect of the Afghan populace will primarily affect Afghanistan.

Ironically, Afghanistan is back to square one with the Taliban's return, ensnaring the nation once more in their brutal obscurantism and enforcing outdated, oppressive, and cruel laws.

The reality is that, from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban reestablished their government in Afghanistan on the basis of Sharia law, exactly as their founder, Mullah Omar, had instructed.

The Taliban may be coerced into moderation by the United Nations and other humanitarian organizations by aid, but the impending disaster for ordinary Afghans is becoming a harsh reality, and the poor need immediate assistance before they completely die. Will the world continue to ignore their misery?