Passed under the radar of the world media, having lost (largely) its quality as a geopolitical issue, the situation in Afghanistan is all the more tragic in that it is today forgotten by the rest of the planet, five months after the hasty and humiliating departure of the American army.
In all regions of the country, famine is on the prowl. Many families sell all their possessions in the streets… or even their children; others share three of the overcrowded hospital beds and die there of malnutrition.
“I have never seen” a food and health situation “deteriorate at such a speed”, says Mary-Ellen McGroarty, director of the World Food Program (UN) for Afghanistan, quoted on the site of the ‘organization. “Malnutrition rates are doubling week by week; we have never seen so many emaciated children in hospitals. »
The organization estimates that in December, 95% of the population had insufficient food consumption. And that in January, 55% of the population, or 22 million people, are facing “absolute” levels of hunger, barely eating a meager meal a day.
On January 10, the UN asked for emergency funding of $5 billion, just to avert a real famine. Appeals from NGOs like the International Rescue Committee (founded by Albert Einstein in 1933) say channels exist to ensure aid goes directly to field workers, bypassing the ’emirate’ of Kabul .
The victory of the Taliban and the end of an occupation which was also a massive daily subsidy — we have spoken of 50 billion, even 100 billion dollars swallowed up by the United States alone each year in the Afghan team — have provoked the collapse of the economy.
Here, a paradox that should be noted: the passage of Westerners in Afghanistan did not leave only the memory of neocolonialism, of a badly conducted war or military blunders (moreover real). The massive movement of people who desperately wanted to flee last August…said something else.
The indicators of the World Bank, WHO, UNICEF and UNESCO on the twenty years of Western occupation are eloquent…
Access to drinking water: 25% in 2001, almost 50% in 2021. Access to electricity: 6.3% in 2001, 84% in 2021. Telephone: 2 million lines in 2001, 40 million in 2021 ( mainly cellular). Schooling for girls: 0% in 2001, 83% in 2021. Participation of women in the labor market: 22% in 2021. Diphtheria, diarrhoea, rubella, cholera: eradicated or in sharp decline.
Of course, the post-Soviet war of 1991-1996 had wreaked terrible havoc; one could also compare with 1990 — or with 1979… But where in 2001 there were only dirt roads, thousands of kilometers of asphalt roads have sprung up, including a circular highway linking the big cities (admittedly damaged then by sabotage and warlike confrontations).
It’s things like that that explain why the hasty departure of Westerners in August 2021 sent shivers down the spines of Afghans… and Afghan women.
Today, non-political factors are added to this: the terrible drought of 2021, but also (depending on the region) torrential rains, an earthquake (in the north of the country) at the beginning of January and exceptionally cold temperatures, when it is not there is no more fuel. ” The total “…
One of the founders of the Taliban movement, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was believed to have been assassinated in the fall in internal quarrels in Kabul, reappeared in early January. He appealed to the world’s “humanitarian obligations” and called for direct economic aid that is “free from political bias”.
This message was repeated last week in Oslo, during the first mass outing of Kabul — all male, bearded and turbaned — repeating that the world is unjustly starving the Afghan people for political reasons.
This meeting was organized at the initiative of Norway; senior French, British and European officials took part. Oslo has been criticized for inviting this delegation – in a specially chartered private jet – and thus “legitimising de facto » the Taliban. In particular, one of the representatives who was there: Anas Haqqani, head of the Haqqani network, considered by many states to be a terrorist group.
Apparently, the “humanism” demanded by Baradar and his companions does not include women. The restriction of their freedoms increases week by week, with measures ranging from the closure of high schools for girls to increasing controls around the burqa.
For those who still dare to demonstrate (the last time, December 28 in Kabul) to denounce “a criminal regime”: raids, beatings and disappearances. Cases of activists being identified, searched and abducted from their homes are increasing.
Helping Afghan men and women… yes, but how to do it without going through this regime that has been ostracized from the world community, from humanity?
François Brousseau is an international affairs columnist at Ici Radio-Canada. [email protected]