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The undulating ward of a crumbling clinic in the South Afghanistan Just one sign of the catastrophic humanitarian crisis that has plagued the war-torn country since World War II The Taliban is back in power a year ago.
Last month, the Musakara Regional Hospital in Helmand province was forced to close its doors to everyone except suspected cholera patients.
The infirmary soon filled with listless patients, with IV drips on their wrists as they recuperated on rusted gurneys.
Although the clinic lacked facilities to test for cholera, some 550 patients showed up within days, showing symptoms of the disease caused by a lack of basic sanitation needs: clean drinking water and an adequate sewage system.
“It was very difficult,” hospital director Ehsanullah Rodi, who has slept only five hours a night since the influx began, told AFP.
“We haven’t seen that from last year or another.”
The UN says Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis is the worst in the world.
– Hungry child –
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the country’s poverty, which has been exacerbated by drought and inflation – felt most strongly in southern Afghanistan – has been pushed to desperate new levels.
“Since the emirate (the Taliban) took power, we couldn’t even find cooking oil,” a woman said in a hospital bed next to her malnourished six-month-old grandson in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province. .
“The poor are under their feet,” said the 35-year-old.
Her grandson is receiving his fifth treatment at Boost Hospital, a sun-baked maze of buildings with peeling paint run jointly by the Ministry of Health and Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
Also read | In secret school in Afghanistan, girls defy the Taliban
Many of the beds in the malnutrition ward were home to two frail, small patients – some sucking milk from a syringe, while others struggled to breathe as they struggled to regain their strength.
“We couldn’t even find dry bread,” said Breshner, the mother of another patient, who she guessed was between 15 and 20 years old.
“We haven’t eaten for three or four days.”
Assistant Nursing Supervisor Homeira Nowrozi struggled to hear them above the crying babies, saying staff “did not have any breaks”.
“We have a lot of critically ill patients,” she said, because parents couldn’t travel earlier.
“We don’t know how many deaths … how many we have in these areas because they don’t come to the hospital.”
– Moral entanglement –
Afghanistan’s woes began long before August 15, 2021, when the Taliban seized Kabul following the hasty withdrawal of U.S.-led troops and the collapse of the government they support.
But the Taliban takeover has pushed the country of 38 million people to the brink.
The United States froze $7 billion in central bank assets, the formal banking sector collapsed, and foreign aid, which accounted for 45 percent of GDP, stopped overnight.
Also read | A year on, why Afghanistan remains a key global issue
For the past year, potential donors have been grappling with new funding to the beleaguered country, which the Taliban has renamed the “Islamic emirate” based on their stark theocracy.
“How do you help in a country where you don’t recognize the government?” asked Roxanna Shapour of the Afghanistan Analyst Network.
Importing humanitarian aid to respond to crises such as the June earthquake, which killed more than 1,000 people and left tens of thousands homeless, is relatively simple, she said, because it’s “not political, but life-saving aid.”
Cash has also been spent emptying out food aid and health care, but development aid for long-term projects that could transform the economy is more complicated.
“If you go in and say, ‘I will pay all teachers’ salaries, that’s fine. But what are the Taliban going to do with the money they save by not paying teachers?” Shapur asked.
– not in a good mood –
In Musa Qala — a dusty agricultural outpost with a container bazaar served by children’s shopkeepers — the deprivation is palpable.
The local economy seems to be living off repairing motorcycles, selling pale poultry carcasses, and cans of energy drinks kept tepid in filthy freezers.
The town saw the bloodiest chapters of the 2001-2021 war and is connected to Lashkar Gah by a makeshift track, which runs over a dry riverbed covered with jagged rocks.
The road starts again at Sangin, further south, where the mud-walled buildings have been so ravaged by artillery and artillery fire that they are collapsing back into the ground.
Ironically, as peace comes, desperation and the need for humanitarian services will only deepen.
“We can go to the hospital now, day or night,” said Maimana, whose 8-year-old daughter Yasia is being treated in Musakara.
“Before, there were battles and mines – roads were blocked.”
The influx of new patients means “less space” and “less staff, so there are difficulties”, Helmand province’s public health director Syed Ahmed told AFP.
Still, Ahmed — a soft-spoken doctor whose office is filled with medical books — insists that the “general situation is better” than the previous government, where corruption was rife.
He blamed economic sanctions on the Taliban for some of the Taliban’s woes, saying “people’s needs and demands have increased”.
But analysts say the Islamists are far from blameless.
Graeme Smith of the International Crisis Group said: “The Taliban’s repressive social policies make it more difficult to reach an agreement to lift these frozen assets.”
“It’s really just the sentiment of the policy makers – keeping millions of girls out of school really makes it so bad.”
– Unable to rule –
Taliban flags are now flying openly in Helmand province, erected on bullet-riddled buildings.
But after 20 years of coveting control, they are running the country in the most devastating way possible.
An unnamed Lashkar Gah man made his own harsh comments about the Taliban’s ability to rule.
“The government clothes are too big for them,” he said.
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