"The lives of Afghans completely changed on August 15, 2021. Today, they are starving and the country is plunged into one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world", asserts Fereshta Abbasi, specialist in Afghanistan for the NGO Human Rights Watch.

On the eve of the Taliban's capture of Kabul a year ago, half the population was already living below the poverty line.

Since then, the situation has only gotten worse.

The country, deprived of international aid – which until then constituted 80% of its budget – saw its economic system collapse, depriving many Afghans of income, food and health care.

Upon his arrival in Kabul in March, Samy Guessabi, regional director of the NGO Action Against Hunger, discovered a city almost at a standstill.

"Many Afghans have lost their jobs and those who continue to work have seen their wages drop massively," he said.

"At the same time, the stoppage of international funding has led to a liquidity crisis. So people cannot even withdraw their savings from the bank. And those who have left the country are finding it very difficult to send money to their relatives."

"There is no shortage of food, but the population cannot buy it"

"For many families, there is only one priority, housing and food. However, when you walk around the market stalls, there is no shortage of food", continues the humanitarian.

"The problem is that people don't have the money to buy it."

Especially since this economy in half mast has been added to galloping inflation, linked to the global food crisis initiated by the conflict in Ukraine.

"The price of some foods has doubled, including cooking oil, rice and flour," he said.

In total, nearly 20 million people, or half of the population, are today in a situation of food insecurity, according to the World Food Program (WFP) and 95% of the population does not have enough to eat.

More than one million children under the age of five suffer from acute and prolonged malnutrition.

In the province of Ghor (center of the country), the WFP also announced recently that tens of thousands of inhabitants had fallen into "catastrophic acute malnutrition", the stage preceding famine.

"And the situation is even worse in the south of the country, which is mainly agricultural, and which experiences frequent periods of severe drought," notes Samy Guessabi.

Faced with this situation, Action Against Hunger regularly organizes cash distributions in its operational areas for the most vulnerable populations.

An emergency measure "far from ideal", according to the humanitarian, and often insufficient.

Women and children on the front line

Women and children are the first victims of this dual economic and humanitarian crisis.

"Children are taken out of school to be put to work. In other families, one or more are sold to provide for the needs of others", deplores Fereshta Abbasi.

Children are thus often sold to traders to be used as cheap labour, and little girls bought within the framework of forced marriages – practices which already existed in the country but which are constantly on the increase.

"Women, on the other hand, have lost everything. Like men, they find themselves without jobs and without income, when they were sometimes the only ones working in the household, but they have also lost a large number of fundamental rights. “, continues the researcher.

For a year, the Taliban authorities have multiplied the restrictions against them.

Wearing the burqa is imposed on them and they can no longer move on their own.

If certain trades remain authorized to them, a clear separation between men and women must be exercised.

Multiplication of diseases

Another direct consequence of this double crisis: the number of diseases is soaring in a health system that is out of breath.

"This humanitarian crisis has been going on for decades, to the rhythm of wars, political turmoil and environmental hazards, but today it has reached an unprecedented intensity," summarizes Amber Alayyan, deputy head of the region. Afghanistan to the NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which has been operating in the country since 2011. "And the more malnutrition accelerates in the country, the more the diseases multiply and the more the health centers saturate."

"I remember a mother who came with her baby of about eight months. He was tiny," she says.

"Discussing with this woman, we realized that the majority of her dinners consisted of just a cup of tea. She was totally malnourished and therefore did not have enough milk to feed her child."

Cases like this, she counts hundreds a week.

In Herat, in the west of the country, where MSF has a clinic, the pediatrician sees an influx of around 800 patients a day, compared to around a hundred just a few months ago.

However, the establishment only has about sixty beds.

"We see people arriving from much further afield in the country," she explains.

"They turn to our structures because the majority of local hospitals are sorely lacking in caregivers and are facing shortages of certain drugs, in particular antibiotics."

>> To read also: "In Afghanistan, hunger sets in and threatens 'particularly babies under six months'"

Growing pressure on humanitarian aid

When taking stock of the past year, Amber Alayyan and Samy Guessabi share the same observation: in the face of this situation, the pressure on humanitarian organizations is stronger than ever.

And if Action Against Hunger, like MSF, have been able to massively increase their operational budget and strengthen their staff in the field, they are worried about the months to come.

“We are approaching the rainy period and then winter, some villages will become inaccessible… I do not want to imagine the situation if the inhabitants have not been able to make reservations”, fears Samy Guessabi.

"We need awareness on the part of the international community," he said.

"The international sanctions are killing the population. The only way out of this humanitarian crisis is to allow the economy to restart and for that there is only one solution, to reopen the door to foreign investment. ."

The international community has made the issue of human rights, and in particular women's rights, a condition for the granting of international aid.

In March, when the Taliban decided to ban access to secondary school for girls, the World Bank had thus chosen to suspend aid of around 600 million dollars (541 million euros).

"For a year, the Taliban have shown that they prefer to impose more and more restrictions rather than accede to the demands of the international community to improve the living conditions of the population", denounces Fereshta Abbasi, of Human Rights Watch .

"They must urgently take their responsibilities. But the major international organizations must continue to fight to find a solution to further help the population there."

In addition to this ever-increasing crowd, Amber Alayyan is also observing more and more patients arriving in serious condition.

"We are witnessing an explosion of cases of acute diarrhoea, measles and even cholera. This is the direct consequence of difficult access to health services and poor nutrition... We are in a vicious circle", he laments. -she.

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