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A30 world news
Diamars 23 November 2021

Jobs lost, middle class Afghans slide into poverty, hunger

tional donors are funneling gymnasium in a west Kabul
money to Afghanistan for neighborhood to receive a
humanitarian aid through cash distribution - 3,500 af-
U.N. agencies, which en- ghanis a month, about $38.
sure the money doesn’t go
into the coffers of the Taliban Nouria Sarvari, a 45-year
government. The main focus widow who was waiting in
has been on two tracks. The line, used to work at the
U.N. Development Program, Higher Education Minis-
World Health Organization try. After the Taliban came
and UNICEF are working to to power, they told most
directly pay salaries to doc- women government employ-
tors and nurses around the ees to stay home. Sarvari said
country to keep the health she hasn’t received a salary
sector from collapsing. The since and she’s struggling to
WFP, meanwhile, is provid- keep food on the table for her
ing direct cash aid and food three children still living with
to families, trying to keep her.
them above water.
Her 14-year-old son, Saj-
The WFP has had to ramp up jad, sells plastic bags in the
its program dramatically. In market for a little cash. Sar-
2020, it provided aid to 9 mil- vari says she depends on help
lion people, up from the year from neighbors. “I buy from
(AP) — Not long ago, trouble under the previous, Salihi’s husband once made before. So far this year, that shopkeepers on credit. I owe
Ferishta Salihi and her U.S.-backed government, around 24,000 Afghanis number has risen to nearly so many shopkeepers, and
family had enough for a which often could not pay its ($264) a month working in 14 million, and the rate has most of what I receive today
decent life. Her husband employees. The situation was the logistics department at the risen sharply each month will just go to paying what I
was working and earned worsened by the coronavirus World Bank’s office in Kabul. since August. Next year, the owe.”
a good salary. She could pandemic and by a punishing But after the Taliban took agency aims to provide for
send several of her daugh- drought that drove up food power, the World Bank halt- more than 23 million people, Samim Hassanzwai said his
ters to private schools. prices. Already in 2020, near- ed its projects. The 39-year- and it says it needs $220 mil- life has been overturned
ly half of Afghanistan’s popu- old Salihi said her husband lion a month to do so. completely over the past year.
But now, after her husband lation was living in poverty. was told not to come to the His father and mother both
lost his job following the Then the world’s shutdown office and he hasn’t received It’s not just the poorest of died of COVID-19, he said.
Taliban takeover of Afghani- of funding to Afghanistan af- his salary since. the poor, usually based in His father was an officer in
stan, she was lined up with ter the Taliban’s Aug. 15 sei- rural areas, who need help. the intelligence agency and
hundreds of other Afghans, zure of power pulled the rug Now she is the family’s only “There’s a new urban class his mother was a translator
registering with the U.N.’s out from under the country’s source of income. One of her of people who up until the for an American agency.
World Food Program to re- small middle class. Interna- neighbors has a business sell- summer would have been
ceive food and cash that her tional funding once paid for ing nuts, so they give her bags drawing a salary ... and now Hassanzwai, 29, had been
family desperately needs just much of the government of nuts to shell at home and are facing hunger for the first working in the Culture Min-
for survival. budget — and without it, the she then sells the shells to time,” said Shelley Thakral, istry but hasn’t gotten a sal-
Taliban have largely been un- people who use them to burn the WFP spokesperson for ary since the Taliban came to
“We have lost everything. able to pay salaries or provide for fuel. Afghanistan. power. Now he’s jobless with
We’ve lost our minds,” Sa- public services. The inter- his wife and three children as
lihi said after her registration national community has not Her husband, she said, spends “People are now having to well as his four younger sis-
was complete. With her was recognized Taliban rule, de- his day walking around the scavenge for food, they’re ters all dependent on him.
her eldest daughter, 17-year- manding the militants form district looking for work. skipping meals and mothers
old Fatima, whom she had a more inclusive government “All he can do is measure the are forced to reduce portions “I had a job, my mother had
to take out of school. She and respect human rights. streets with his steps,” she of food,” she said. a job, my father had his du-
can’t afford to pay the fees at said, using an expression for ties. We were doing fine with
a private school, and the Tal- International aid also fueled someone with nothing to do. Last week, hundreds of men money,” he said. “Now ev-
iban so far are not allowing projects around the country The U.S. and other interna- and women lined up in a erything is finished.”
teenage girls to go to public that provided jobs, most of
schools. which are now on hold. The
country’s banks are cut off
“I don’t want anything for from the international bank-
myself, I just want my chil- ing system, further snarling
dren to get an education,” the private sector. The coun-
Salihi said. try’s economy is estimated to
have contracted 40% in just
In a matter of months as Af- three months.
ghanistan’s economy craters,
many stable, middle-class Hospitals are seeing increas-
families like Salihi’s have ing numbers of emaciated,
plummeted into desperation, malnourished children,
uncertain of how they will mostly from the country’s
pay for their next meal. That poorest families who were al-
is one reason the United Na- ready barely getting by.
tions is raising alarm over a
hunger crisis, with 22% of Now families that have seen
the population of 38 million their once-stable livelihoods
already near famine and an- wrecked also find them-
other 36% facing acute food selves with nothing and must
insecurity - mainly because scrape for ways to cover costs
people can’t afford food. of food, rent and medical ex-
penses.
The economy was already in