BAMIYAN, Afghanistan — As winter sets in, Afghan widow Kubra needs to find fuel to heat the single room where eight family members live in the central province of Bamiyan. The flour they bought months ago is running out, so food is also becoming scarce.
“We got two sacks of flour last spring which we’re still using. After that, we have to have faith that God will help us,” the 57-year-old told Reuters in a room lined with rice sacks to keep out the cold.
Their firewood was stolen when they left their home amid the chaos that engulfed Afghanistan in the summer, as Taliban insurgents swept towards Kabul on their way to seizing back control of the country.
Stories like Kubra’s are increasingly common in a country struck by severe drought and where money has run dry.
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Before the Taliban toppled the Western-backed government in August, the economy relied heavily on foreign aid. But with the international community wary of the Islamist militant movement and the United States imposing sanctions on some of its leaders, that support has all but disappeared.
The United Nations estimates nearly 23 million Afghans — about 55 percent of the population — are facing extreme levels of hunger, with nearly 9 million at risk of famine as winter takes hold.
Life for Afghanistan’s poor has always been hard; Kubra’s family works on farms in the spring, earning potatoes instead of money.
But it’s getting worse. Vegetables like cauliflower are out of reach, and plastic sheets protect their home from the freezing weather and snow. There is so little space in the single room that Kubra sleeps at her sister’s house at night.
“My son used to collect pieces of scrap metal but right now he has no work,” she said.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
