By Hamza Ameer Bamiyan, Afghanistan : , December 30, 2013.The cold winters present new challenges to Afghans.
Many families are uncertain about what their next meal will be like.
Kubra is an Afghan widow who lives in Bamiyan.
Her firewood and flour were stolen after they fled to Kabul, in chaos following the Taliban’s move towards Kabul in August.
Kubra said she doesn’t know how she would get enough fuel for her winter room.
She also didn’t know where she could get her next meal.
We still use two bags of flour we got last spring.Kubra, 57 years old said that after that we must have faith in God’s help.”
Kubra said that she knows full well that nobody will give her and her family bread because of the scarcity of food.
Kubra is in the same dire situation as all other houses in Bamiyan.The severe drought and dried-out money inflow have made every day difficult for locals.
All foreign aids that constituted more than 80 percent of Afghanistan’s economy were seized by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The US and global community are uncertain of how the Taliban will be able to trust them, and there have been sanctions placed by the US against top Taliban leaders.
This has created a major food and water crisis.
According to the United Nations, approximately 23 million Afghans face extreme hunger.
Nearly 9 million are at risk of starvation during winter.
Kubra and his family like others in the area, rely on spring work in farmland to earn potatoes for their hard labor.
She says that her son was a scrap metal collector, and now has no job.
Massouma is a 26 year-old mother to four children.She has never had much choice in the way of food and struggled with her daily life.Massouma used to cook rice for her family and use cooking oil every day.Now, however, they only cook the same meals once per week.
We never had different types of food.
But in the past, it was okay to have rice and oil.It used to be that we cooked once per day, and it was delicious.Massouma said that now it happens once per week, and there may not be bread.
Taliban claim that they know the severity of the crisis facing the country.
According to their leaders, the current crisis is partly due to the adverse effects of more than four decades worth of wars and the mismanagement of corruption committed by the former government of Ashraf Gani.
hamza/arm
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