Afghan Diary: Nobody talks about Corona in Afghanistan - the fight against hunger is raging

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Afghanistan slides deeper and deeper into a humanitarian catastrophe.The need of people is unimaginable.Correspondent Natalie Amiri describes first -hand a cruel reality.

Kabul - I would like to start a letter this last chapter of Afghan Diary, a young woman wrote it to me before I started the trip to Afghanistan:

Dear Natalie, you ask me how I do after the Taliban have conquered my country.Only one thing comes to my mind: that Afghanistan has lost everything at the moment.Afghanistan had order and system, relationships with other countries, i.e. international relationships.Afghanistan was on the way of further development every day, but at the moment everything is lost.There is nothing in my country at the moment: no freedom of speech, no democracy, no human rights, no respect, no life.

There is currently nothing more in Afghanistan.The economy is ruined.People's lives have become so difficult.No one has more hope.There is not a single message that could awaken hope among Afghans.I read a lot of messages in which I keep hearing that someone committed suicide.The future is unclear.Everything is blurred and indistinct.Business life stands still, life stands still, people no longer laugh, nobody knows how it will continue tomorrow.You don't even know what it looks like in the next hour.

With this situation, people in Afghanistan are confronted.We have to sacrifice everything.In far remote villages you have an even darker life.But people also lost their work and thus their income in cities.Salaries have not been paid for for four months, many don't even have bread to eat anymore.In the past you could support others, now we are all in a situation in which we can no longer help anyone.You are afraid to help and think: "If I give someone the 5 Afghani that I have, I might have to go hungry tomorrow".This is our everyday life now.

A friend of mine who is the only daughter of the family and the family - like me - supported financially, sold all of their gold jewelry and bought flour and bread with the proceeds.But what should she do next month?Almost all women have lost their work, they are not allowed to go on with the training.Many freedoms were also taken.In general, people here now have no freedoms.Our freedoms have been given.We have to live hidden and must not raise our voice.If we raise them, we risk our lives.

No one has the courage to talk about all these injustices and to say loudly that all of this is unfair.Those who post post in the new government are neither professional nor are they experts.Responsibility in all offices and state organs is now left to people who have no idea of the tasks.Many say that there have been greater security on Afghan roads for a few days.What is that security if people are not allowed to talk freely, run around freely, leave the apartment freely?

Afghanistan in humanitarian crisis: direct international help has been deleted since Taliban power takeover

I am in Kabul, I will meet my acquaintance right away.The one who wrote the letter to me.She always can, she tells me, she doesn't have a job anymore, her husband is also at home, he also lost his job.After not paid for four months.After almost a week in Afghanistan, I hardly met any one who has received his salary in the past few months.The country slides deeper into a humanitarian crisis every day.Afghanistan's budget is largely financed from abroad.For decades.

Since the Taliban* took power in summer, all direct help has been deleted by the international donors.Washington also frozen $ 9.5 billion, which lie as foreign exchange reserves of the Afghan central bank in the USA, and took the country with strict financial sanctions.International transfers via the Swift system are no longer possible.Aid projects, almost all of them, were discontinued.Afghanistan is close to being insolvent.The country is in a massive liquidity crisis.The dollar price increases daily (due to the overly large demand for dollars), thereby the prices in the country.The Afghans who have money on accounts want to save their savings from inflation.There has been a currency loss of 20 percent since summer.I stand in front of a bank in Kabul, there are dozens of people next to me, men.They are waiting for them to get their investments, their own, which are on their account.

Before the summer there were still deposits to the banks, donors such as the UN, international messages, etc.., The money cycle worked.But now the deposits fall away, only payments are required.And the banks' interludes shrink every day.Compared to the previous year by 40 percent.All Afghans who are in front of the bank with me want to withdraw money, they are afraid that there will soon be no money at all.Afghanistan is not an export country, there is hardly any of its own productions, so that the country depends on imports.They have to be paid.And the income is out.

Poverty in Afghanistan: banks spend hardly any money - 23 million threatens to death

I ask an older man what exactly the problem is, why they are all standing here.He says that things are actually going better here than with other banks in Kabul, but then he is drowned out by the surrounding men who complain about his statement.And tell me the opposite.They have been here for days, don't get any money, especially no dollars, and if so, only to an enormously bad exchange rate and then old banknotes are also issued.

If I had stood here yesterday, a man says to me, then I would have seen that more people were gathered in front of the bank, more than200.They all wanted to withdraw their money.Another tells me: I have 800.000 Afghani on my account, I have only been able to200 so far.000 Afghani and that I get dollars for it, I can dream of that.And for this withdrawal of200.000 Afghani I sometimes wait three days and nights until it comes to it.And then he says we stand here like beggars who have to beg for their own money.200.000 Afghani sind umgerechnet knapp2000 Dollar.

Even before the Taliban took over the power, the country under the heaviest drought groaned for decades.According to the UN, 97 percent will live in poverty in Afghanistan* by the end of 2021.The United Nations warn 23 million people to starve.

Since Taliban power: Poverty is getting bigger-families sell infants themselves in need

So many numbers.Numbers that quickly disappear in our memory if you don't see the suffering with your own eyes.In Kabul there are children on the street everywhere who sell tea, sweets, try to make a little money.I meet families who couldn't buy anything to eat for days.Almost every family has to reduce their food intake.Bread and sugar, that's what we have been taking for weeks, tells me a woman who wants to stay anonymous.She must no longer work since the Taliban are in power.Her husband also lost his job, he was employed in the Ministry of Health.

A friend tells me that until recently there were always poor people in Afghanistan in front of the bread shop and hoped that a bread was put together for free.They were beggars, now there are also teachers who are shaken, ashamed, take a bread as alms.

Families who no longer know what to do are sell their young daughters than brides.With the bridal money that the young girl's family gets for it, they try to survive.I tried to find a family, but the shame that they sell their daughters is too big.Selling young girls as a bride is not new in Afghanistan, it also has cultural motives, says the women's rights activist Mahbouba Seraj in Kabul when I speak to them.

But it is new that they are now selling their sons and a lot of young girls and boys are being sold right now.This is a clear sign of increasing poverty.And not only they are sold.In the Afghan news channels, on social media, more and more news about people who sell their infants due to poverty are circulating for 30.000, 40.000 Afghani.That is about the income of half a year.

EU sends 150 tons of aid to Afghanistan in December

"It is a wire rope act," says Dietmar Köster, SPD MP in the European Parliament and there since 2019 in the external committee."It is a dilemma in which you move.You have to weigh what needs to be done to relieve the need of the people there.But on the other hand, it shouldn't be about recognizing the Taliban regime in any way.A third of people have to fear starvation, so you can't just close your eyes away.On the other hand, we have a regime that is worn by terrorists in Afghanistan, the Taliban are a terrorist organization with which there can be no official recognition.You have to go a bit now, this is the result of a failed policy of the West towards Afghanistan."

The EU sent 150 tons of help to Afghanistan in December.A drop on the hot stone.According to a UN report, the economic costs and social consequences would be colossal if the Afghan banking system collapses.The phase after a collapse would take forever to build trust in the international market again.Therefore, at least part of the commercial banking system must be protected, the report says.

Who can still afford coal in Afghanistan?The winter are bitterly cold in the country

We drive past a coal seller.I ask the driver to keep the driver.Would like to know who can still afford the coal here.I heard and saw that to heat everything, everything is burned, plastic, fabric, just everything that burns.You have to cause warmth, in Afghanistan it is bitter cold in winter, I freeze here every day and I have warm shoes and a thick jacket.It is really freezing cold, it has sub -temperatures during the night and winter has just started.

The coal seller is telling me that the price rose by 30 percent compared to last year when an older man wants to buy two coal briquettes.I ask him if the prices have risen up.He affirmed that it has become more expensive and he had no money, his son was killed in explosions.The question of why the prices are so high, he answers as follows: "God and the government, nothing is subject to our control." Auf meine Frage, wie er das Geld für die Kohle verdiene, sagt er mir: „Ich habe seit heute morgen 150 Afghani verdient und hatte noch nicht mal Frühstück."

In his opinion, what does the future of Afghanistan look like with the change of government?"God knows better, we don't know. Gott weiß es besser", antwortet er mir.

Bitter cold in Afghanistan: Having and good for people because they have nothing more to eat

In Afghanistan you often sit on a Corsi in winter, a very low square table, under which it is heated, with coal.The embers donate warmth all night.But very few can afford the coal.Many put water in the sun in the afternoon so that it warms up a little.This is then placed under the Korsi so that the steam warms people.

Often the heating is made in just one room when there is one.Then the whole family gathers in this one room.We switch off the fridge, tell me a woman I visit at home.While we are sitting in one warm room, electrical room heating, connected to the current, ensures the heat.Then there is power failure, as is so often the case in Afghanistan.Even several times a day in winter.In the few rich, generators then jump on, candles are taken out in the rest of the population.If it is already dark, you go to sleep earlier.

Everywhere I see people on the side of the road, selling pots, carpets, selling clothes.Your belongings.I ask the man who stands in front of pots, vacuum cleaners and hair dryer on the roadside.He affirms.Why, I want to know. Seine Antwort: „Armut". Was sagen die Menschen, die verkaufen? „Sie sagen, sie haben nichts zu essen, also verkaufen sie ihre Gegenstände", berichtet der Verkäufer mir.

Corona in Afghanistan?Nobody talks about pandemic in the country - they don't have the luxury

The director of the US Think Tank Crisis Group writes on Twitter: "The abrupt demolition of the help has devastating consequences because the USA and other donors have made it easier for Afghanistan to do an aid dependency.US sanctions that could not stop the uprising as intended now suffocate the entire Afghan economy."

Nobody talks about Corona in Afghanistan, they don't have the time.They don't have the luxury.Because you have to take care that your child will not die tomorrow.And that shouldn't sound melodramatic, that is the reality in December 2021 in Afghanistan.(Natalie Amiri) *Merkur.de is an offer from Ippen.Media.

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