Kabul (AFP)

The Afghan Central Bank announced Wednesday that it had found $ 12.3 million in former members of the government at a time when the country, controlled for a month by the Taliban, faces a shortage of liquidity.

"The money found came from senior leaders of the previous government, such as Amrullah Saleh (the former vice-president, editor's note), and from certain security agencies which kept cash and gold in their offices," according to the Central Bank press release.

"The Islamic Emirate", the name given to Afghanistan by the Taliban, according to this text transferred everything "to the national coffers" in the name of the "transparency" which the Islamists pride themselves on, as opposed to the old regime whose corruption they denounce.

One month after the fall of Kabul, the Afghan population remains plagued by economic anxiety and the fear that a new leaden scourge will befall them, eroding the rights acquired over the past twenty years.

Deprived of aid from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and central bank reserves frozen by Washington, the country is indeed facing a shortage of liquidity.

- Pledged aid of $ 1.2 billion -

Fund transfer specialists, such as Western Union and Moneygram, have admittedly announced the resumption of their operations, suspended on August 18.

But on the ground, many Afghans say their branches are strapped for cash.

Abdul Rahim, a former soldier, traveled nearly 1,000 kilometers from Faryab in northern Afghanistan to Kabul to collect his salary.

"Bank branches are closed in the provinces," he told AFP.

But in the capital, "I have been coming to the bank for three days, in vain, he says. Today, I arrived around 10 am and there were already around 2,000 people waiting."

Faced with the risk of a humanitarian disaster, the international community has pledged, according to the UN, to pay $ 1.2 billion (about one billion euros) in aid for humanitarian organizations in the country.

On Wednesday, the European Union announced that it would pay an additional 100 million euros to Afghanistan.

New Taliban leaders John SAEKI AFP

There is still great concern among the population, with a question in particular: will women be allowed to work?

"The Taliban told us to stay at home," said an employee of the Ministry of Telecommunications.

“There is security, of course, but if we don't have enough to eat,” the situation may change, she warns.

There is great concern in the country to relive the scenario of the years 1996-2001, when the Taliban governed under strict application of Sharia, Islamic law.

- Leak from the women's football team -

Women were then not allowed to study or work, they were also prohibited from playing sports or attending a match.

Since their capture of Kabul, the Islamists have assured to have changed in the space of twenty years and promised that the rights of women would be respected, while maintaining the vagueness.

Faced with this uncertainty, the junior women's football team fled to neighboring Pakistan on Tuesday.

Schoolgirls in a school where they are separated from boys in Kabul on September 15, 2021 BULENT KILIC AFP

The only positive point in this still gloomy picture, security has improved according to several residents after years of attacks and targeted assassinations.

"Currently, the situation in the country is good, there is no war," said one of them, Mohammad Ashraf.

At Kabul airport, the scene of scenes of chaos at the end of August on the sidelines of the evacuation of more than 123,000 people during an airlift from the United States and their partners, activity is slowly resuming.

After a first commercial flight between Kabul and Islamabad on Monday, Iran in turn announced on Wednesday the resumption of its commercial flights with Afghanistan.

Washington said Wednesday that a US citizen and two permanent residents of the United States had left Afghanistan by land the day before.

In total, at least 36 Americans and 24 permanent residents of the United States have left Afghanistan with the help of the United States government since the military withdrawal in late August, said State Department spokesman Ned Price.

"This will continue," he added.

A man selling Taliban flags walks down a street in Kabul September 15, 2021 Hoshang Hashimi AFP

On the political level, the official presentation ceremony of the new government is still pending.

Unveiled at the beginning of September, its composition - exclusively the caciques of the first Taliban government and no women - had been received freshly by the United States and the European Union.

© 2021 AFP