Less than two months after the Islamist terror militia took over the country, Afghanistan is facing a major food crisis. According to the U.N.’s World Food Program (WFP), millions of Afghans could die unless immediate food aid is delivered, the news reports on Monday said.
While the Taliban have been busy hunting former regime officials and imposing the Sharia law, the country of nearly 40 million people is heading towards a famine. “In the west of the country, thousands of poor families have already sold their flocks and fled, seeking shelter and assistance in packed temporary camps near major cities,” the New Delhi-based newsweekly India Today reported.
In some provinces, the hunger-stricken families are forced to “sell young daughters into marriage,” the newspaper The Australian wrote on Tuesday.
The BBC, on Monday, reported the worsening situation in Afghanistan:
Millions of Afghans will face starvation this winter unless urgent action is taken, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) has warned.
More than half the population – about 22.8 million people – face acute food insecurity, while 3.2 million children under five could suffer acute malnutrition, the WFP said.
“Afghanistan is now among the world’s worst humanitarian crises, if not the worst,” said David Beasley, the executive director of the WFP. “We are on a countdown to catastrophe.”
Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in August after the US pulled out the last of its remaining troops and the militants swept across the country retaking ground. (…)Many Afghans are now selling their possessions to buy food. The new Taliban administration has been blocked from accessing overseas assets, as nations assess how to deal with the hardline group, meaning wages to civil servants and other workers have been withheld.
The WFP warned that the looming winter threatened to further isolate Afghans dependent on humanitarian assistance to survive. And for the first time in Afghanistan, urban residents are suffering from food insecurity at similar rates to rural communities, the organisation said.
Earlier this month, the United States agreed to provide humanitarian assistance to the jihadist-ruled country. The Taliban spokesman on Sunday confirmed that the “global humanitarian aid” had arrived.
Despite the Biden administration’s decision to resume aid to Afghanistan, the Taliban have threatened the U.S. and Europe if more economic concessions are not made to their newly-established Islamic Emirate.
The jihadist militia has vowed to flood the West with illegal immigrants if their demands were not met. “Afghanistan’s new Taliban government has warned the US and European envoys that continued attempts to pressure them through sanctions will undermine security and could trigger a wave of economic refugees.” the French news agency AFP reported on October 13.
These are credible threats. The European Union is already witnessing a surge in Afghan migrants since the power-grab by the Taliban.
The Taliban wants the “kuffar” non-Muslim Western governments to provide billions of dollars to run its Sharia-governed Islamic Emirate. Before the Islamist takeover, Afghanistan was heavily dependent on Western aid. “Some 40% of the country’s GDP – national output – comes from aid,” the World Bank estimates.
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