Afghanistan under the Taliban, day 1: inflation, stocks, food shortages and fear

Day 1 of Islamic Emirate, as the Taliban regime in Afghanistan calls itself, arrived in fear, long lines of Afghans in banks to withdraw their savings and save them from possible closure, uncontrolled price hikes in Kabul bazaars and an economy on the brink of near total collapse.

In order to revive the economy, the banks (they will have closed when the taliban took Kabul) received the order to reopenBut they have put strict weekly limits on cash withdrawals, and people face long lines to access their money. If they can.

“I started my first day under the Taliban at the entrance of a bank in the Shahr-e-Naw neighborhood of Kabul. I went there around 6 a.m., before the bank opened, but there were already a lot of people in lineSaid Nesar, an engineer from Kabul. “I stayed there until noon, but they closed the ATM because they ran out of money and I came home empty-handed. There were hundreds of people”.

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“The Taliban beat people with pipes … It’s the second day that I’m trying to make money, but I couldn’t,” he continued. “I have lived here in Kabul most of my life, but I’ve never seen the city like this. In the streets, there is an absence of feelings. People have lost all of their senses. Now they don’t care anymore, I don’t care anymore; my generation lost everything in a few hours. People are broken”.

Afghans who depend on money transfers from family members living abroad have been affected by the closure of money transfer operators, such as Western Union, while a growing number of people are desperately trying to sell jewelry or household items.

The Wrestle daily for buying food has become to fat a concern for the afghans and many are willing to pay increasing amounts for basic commodities, resulting in rapidly rising prices. The threat of hyperinflation is latent and its effects could be fatal in Afghanistan, where a third of the population survives on less than $ 2 a day.

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Kabul market traders said that flour, oil or rice increased by 30 percent, while those of vegetables increased by up to 50 percent, and those of gasoline increased by 75 percent. The UN has already warned that food could be dangerously scarce in the coming weeks in Afghanistan.

Far from the city, Humanitarian NGOs warn of impending disasterdrought affecting farmers and forcing thousands of poor rural people to flee to cities. And in the background, hides the threat of a serious Covid-19 epidemic which, according to local health experts, it can be “catastrophic” because hospitals are overcrowded and only 2 percent of the population is vaccinated.

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Prevent the economy from sinking

In an attempt to control the looming debacle, the new regime has appointed a new central bank chief, but experts say it will be difficult to get Afghanistan’s financial system back on track without the specialists who escaped Kabul. “I don’t know how they are going to handle this because all the technical staff, including the top management, have left the country”said a banker. To control the situation, the extremists have banned the removal of dollars and valuables from the country and will confiscate the assets of those who attempt to do so.

Experts argue that Afghanistan needs “desperatelyMoney, and the Taliban are unlikely to have access to we$ 10 billion in assets which the Afghan central bank has largely overseas.

“If the international community wants to avoid an economic collapse, one way would be to allow Afghanistan to have limited and supervised access to its reserves. “said Shah Mehrabi, professor of economics at Montgomery College in Maryland who sits on the central bank’s board, as quoted by Reuters. “Failure to access it will stifle the Afghan economy and directly harm the Afghan people, and the families it will be pushed further into poverty”.

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The situation of women: “I am only waiting for my death”

Since taking power on August 15, after a military campaign the speed and effectiveness of which surprised the West, they have tried to present an image of openness and restraint. But many Afghans and foreign leaders do not believe his promises and fear a repeat of the fundamentalist regime they put into practice in their previous government (1996-2001) and which was particularly repressive with regard to women’s rights, of which most were not allowed to work, with a few exceptions, notably in the health sector.

On September 1, some Afghans returned to work thanks to promises from the country’s new masters, who guaranteed they will be more tolerant than in their previous government, marked by discrimination and brutality against women.

Health and education workers say they have seen no change so far from early August, before the Taliban arrived. Other employees are waiting for authorization to return to work, while waiting to see how the Taliban allow them to resume their activities under Islamic law (the Sharia), i.e. separated from men.

Friday the new Islamic Emirate asked these workers to return to work “normally”, but with clear rules: “Male doctors cannot examine women ”, counted a midwife who works in a clinic near Kandahar. This unwritten rule has been in effect for twenty years in much of Afghanistan, a very conservative country, especially in rural areas. Until now, in Kabul, and in the main cities of the country, women could be treated by male doctors, with the exception of gynecological examinations.

The British newspaper The Guardian collects the testimony of a young woman from Farah who, after the invasion of the city by the Taliban, settled in Kabul in the hope of leaving the country: “I have been crying since this morning. My brother went out to buy me a burqa and I burned my jeans. I cried as I burned them: I burned my hopes with them. Nothing will make me happy anymore. I’m just waiting for my death, I don’t want this life anymore.

“Ever since the Taliban took Farah, I feel like I’m falling. Today I felt like I crashed to the ground and died. Now I don’t feel anything anymore, I’m dead, ”said the young woman. “This morning, everything is over for me, and also for all the inhabitants of the city. You won’t see anyone laughing. An absolute feeling of depression runs through the city.

Two Afghan sisters, Fatima and Maryam, 23 and 20, woke up on September 1, hidden in their home and in the midst of terror. “It’s like a horror movie,” the youngest engineering student, who hasn’t returned to college for two weeks, told the BBC. Nor does he trust the Taliban’s guarantees that women will be able to continue to study and work.

“My classes were at night, they’ll never allow me to attend,” she said, her voice breaking in tears. “I get up and I know I can’t go out. I just wanted to continue studying, it was my passion ”. “We are terrified of the Taliban, even when we look out the window we see them there in afghan police uniforms, ”said Fatima, who lost her job and, as a former women’s rights activist, is more afraid than ever.

The only family members who continue to leave home are the father and brother. “They go shopping. But when they come back, we don’t want to know anything about what is there, what they saw. We prefer not to talk,” said Fatima. “We women in Afghanistan have lost everything, there is no future. Here. For us.” The only hope, they say, is to leave the country as soon as possible.

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