Mari Jaan: “I can’t eat, but I can feed myself,” she tells us in the Afghan village of KABUL
There is KABUL. Every couple of weeks, 50-year old Mari Jaan joins hundreds of other Afghans in a long food line, where she waits for a few modest items: a jug of cooking oil, bags of flour, lentils, salt.
Mari Jaan says that the power, water and everything else have been shut off. Her husband has been unemployed and ill for much of the last year. Without him it’s been difficult to pay the bills.
We are living in very hard conditions. “If I get work, I’ll buy food and cook it. If I get nothing, I tell the children to go to bed, to sleep with hunger.”
The changing face of hunger in Afghanistan: International Committee of the Red Cross, Child Maltreatment, and the Ukraine’s Children’s Hospital Assist
A major humanitarian crisis occurred when the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan. Donor governments and institutions like the International Monetary Fund cut off their assistance, which sent the country’s economy into a tailspin and left countless Afghans without jobs and incomes.
There is a changing face of hunger in Afghanistan. “With the vanishing of jobs, with the economy in a meltdown situation, we’re now seeing people standing in line for food assistance who never would have believed in their lives they’d be standing in line for aid.”
“When we talk to people at our distribution sites, everybody tells us, ‘Last winter was difficult, but we have no idea how we will get through the coming winter,’” says Philippe Kropf, the WFP’s Kabul-based spokesperson.
The International Committee of the Red Cross reported this week that child maltreatment is higher at hospitals in Afghanistan than it was in the previous year. A children’s hospital it supports in Afghanistan has seen a 55 percent increase in the number of children younger than 5 who are being treated for pneumonia as people struggle to keep their homes warm, according to the aid group.
“The construction sites typically freeze over in the winter and so a lot of us in construction don’t have jobs and don’t make money in the winter months,” says 32-year-old Shahzaman Mohammadi, waiting at the tail end of the food line.
Households that are teetering, barely able to support themselves, may have to make the same difficult choice this year that they were forced to make last winter: to spend what little money they have on food or on coal and firewood to keep warm.
The WFP needs more than $1 billion in additional funding to continue its operations through the winter in Afghanistan. The war in Ukraine caused a massive spike in food and energy prices this year, it reports. The aid group’s food basket is about 20% more expensive than it was last year.
U.S. sanctions have not recognized the Taliban as a legitimate government in Afghanistan: A case study of the intergovernmental financial situation in Afghanistan
For years, he fixed flat tires for a living and was able to support his family of nine. He lost his job when the government went down, and that ended his financial security.
“We’ve had to cut back a lot to get by,” says Nazar, as he makes his way through a food line. “We used to eat meat several times a week; now we’re lucky if we can eat it a couple times a month.”
He doesn’t blame the government for ruining his life. People are waiting in line at a distribution center. Instead, many see the international community at fault.
“Life was much better before the arrival of the Islamic Emirate,” Nazar says, referring to the Taliban government. The sanctions imposed on this government have affected us all.
Although the US tried to broker a peace deal with the Taliban, neither Washington nor any other country has recognized the Taliban as Afghanistan’s legitimate government. Afghanistan’s access to the international banking system and $9 billion of foreign currency reserves were stopped when the U.S. revoked the central bank’s credentials.
The Biden administration has released $3.5 billion of the total for crucial humanitarian needs through the creation of a foundation meant to bypass the Taliban. Financial institutions are hesitant about resuming their own programs.
After declining repeated NPR requests for an interview, the office of the IMF spokesperson sent this statement: “Since there continues to be a lack of clarity within the international community regarding the recognition of a government in Afghanistan, the IMF has paused its engagement with Afghanistan.”
Deegle’s mom, Meral Ibrahim, visits the Malnutrition Intensive Care Unit: “It’s a good boy but a little too young,” Omoke says
“Somalia has faced four consecutive failed rainy seasons. “This is the worst drought we have seen in the last 40 years,” said Elizabeth Omoke, an emergency specialist in the famine-struck country. “The situation is bad.”
The crop failures have come as battles between the government and al-Shabaab have forced hundreds of thousands of Somalis to seek food aid and basic shelter in camps set up for internally displaced people. The current dry spell has displaced more than one million people.
Hirey says the hospital admits 20 starving children a day. On Dec. 12NPR visited the malnutrition Intensive Care Unit which is full of six beds. Some patients in the next ward are in better shape than Deeqle. Other malnourished children are treated in an outpatient clinic. The Plumpy’Nut supplement can help the children regain weight quickly, and is supplied to their caregivers.
“From the long starvation, he’s lost all his muscles, his fats. Dr. Hirey is next to the boy’s bedside in the malnutrition intensive care unit. “This child is two years old and his weight is only 5.4 [kilograms]” — just under 12 pounds. The weight of a normal two-month-old is this one.
The doctor says Deeqle should weigh two to three times this much. Deegle’s mother, Meral Ibrahim, sits beside him on the bed. She fans her son with her shawl. Ibrahim says that he became ill nearly a month ago with severe encephalitis and vomiting. He grew thinner. She made the 60-mile journey with him from their village to seek help.
Families in a refugee camp: Kasim, Mariam, and their four children in Somalia — six months ago, after a drought, lost their livelihoods
As long as the children don’t have other complications like cholera, measles or tuberculosis, he says they respond well to treatment, which includes nasal feeding tubes, IV drips, antibiotics and special high-nutrient formula milk.
There have been many challenges as well, including an insect invasion that destroyed crops in 2020 and caused food prices to go up.
We have a shortfall of water in the near term. The last one was in 2017,” he says. “And if you recall in 2011, there was a famine in which about 260,000 people lost their lives.”
Mariam told us that she’s so old that it’s impossible to know her age at the camp. She thinks she’s 50.
Over those years, Somalia has suffered immensely from droughts and wars. She says she’s not seen anything like it in her lifetime in the Baidoa camp.
A woman and her four children stand in front of a shelter. Like other shelters in this camp, she has a dome of sticks wrapped in bits of cloth and grain bags.
One of her granddaughters is sitting at the entrance. Two children lean against Kasim’s shawl. The kids are thin. Their hair is limp and faded from being deficient in nutrition.
Six months ago, after Somalia’s fourth rainy season in a row failed, Kasim decided she had to get her grandchildren out of their village because there was no longer anything to eat.
“We were both farmers and also ranchers,” he says. There was no rain for the last three years. So we couldn’t grow our crops.”
The journey took a long time. They were begging for food along the route. Her daughter had passed away a long time ago. Kasim was responsible for all of the children.
Food needs in famine-torn Somalia — an analysis of village livelihoods in Bantua, Somalia, according to Omoke
Residents in many of the camps say they’re not getting much food assistance, but Omoke insists aid agencies are working to get relief to Somalis who’ve been left with almost nothing by the drought.
“The humanitarian community is mounting a response, which is very much focused on the [internally displaced persons],” she says. Data shows that Baidoa is where the greatest needs are and where there’s a chance of famine. The response in Baidoa has gone up a lot. The services are not enough for you to speak to. The needs are huge.
Local shopkeepers in Baidoa say al-Shabaab is also driving up food prices due to what they refer to as “blockages” on the local roads. Special brokers can only arrange the shipments of food from the war torn country. Merchants who used to send staple items to vendors inoutlying villages now say they can’t because of the risk of having their shipments seized by the rebels.
The number of severely malnourished children has increased five-fold over the last six months, according to a doctor at a health clinic in Baidoa.
The situation is still very critical, according to Nur. More and more families are moving into the camps every day according to him. A majority of the kids arriving are already not adequately nourished.
The Deeg-roor Medical Organization aid group have a clinic in an enclosure with a dirt floor. The mothers bring in children with thin arms. The kids have their heads in their hands.
If it’s caught early, there’s a good chance it can be treated. He says most kids who are low in calories recover quickly if they’re 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217. Some people just need more biscuits.
Families of Somalia’s Daniyle Camp — a place of refuge for starving children, orphans, and the doctor
At the Daniyle camp on the outskirts of Mogadishu, Somalia, hundreds of people who’ve fled from drought-stricken areas of Somalia are now crammed into a dusty lot. They’ve erected makeshift shelters out of sticks covered with tarps, burlap bags and bits of plastic sheeting. The ground is powdery and dry. Puffs of dust rise around each footfall.
Six kids and their uncle arrived at the camp two months ago. Khadijo says they had to come after the crops in her village in the Lower Shabelle region failed for the fourth season in a row.
Khadijo is single mother. She has seven children from her first marriage, four from her second, and an 8-year-old relative who died several years ago.
The farm owner saw the lives of the people that lived there, and so he decided to build a shelter for them. “He paid for the bus fares for us to come here.”
She heard that international aid agencies were feeding the residents of the camps. But once she arrived, she found that wasn’t happening.
She feeds her children by washing laundry for other families in the city. But she says she can’t always find work.
The 8-year-old orphan, Dahiro, appears to be suffering the most from the lack of food. Her arms are thin and hang limply at her sides. Her hair has faded to a reddish color, a classic sign of malnutrition.
He states that food prices were high earlier this year. Prior to the war in Ukraine, Somalia got 90% of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine. The doctor says grain prices have come down somewhat but still remain high. Water prices have increased and that adds to the financial burdens on families. Most starving kids can be successfully treated if their parents bring them for help, according to the doctor. The boy in front of him is 2 years old and weighs just 12 pounds.
The boy’s mother, Sowda Mustaf, is 21 years old. Even as she tends to her son in the hospital, a neighbor brings in her 6-month-old daughter to breast feed. She says she is able to continue because of her brother, who works in the market in Baidoa.
Bashir Ahmed Saman, 23, runs a dry goods store in Baidoa. He says roads around the city have been blocked ever since he opened his shop two years ago. “I cannot buy everything I want from Mogadishu,” he says. “I can only order it from the larger wholesalers. Also, I can’t transfer items to another village because of the blockages. That affects me.”
The “blockages” hurt his profits and also inflate his prices. He says that the situation is caused by lack of a strong government. The climate has changed. But mainly we don’t have leaders who are able to solve the problems of this country.”
Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/12/23/1144740727/why-have-1-7-million-somalis-fled-their-homes-and-is-the-world-doing-enough-to-h
She explains how rain affects the food crisis in the village of Farhia, a Somali woman from al-Shabaab
Farhia says that most of the people living in the camp survive by begging. Some people get medicine from a humanitarian health clinic and resell it in the town to buy food.
She says that al-Shabaab controls the area she comes from. Al-Shabaab doesn’t allow people to freely leave so she fled in the middle of the night. You cannot return to that place once you’ve moved there. Even if you left everything there.”
She does not have much faith that the government or relief agencies will be able to solve the current food crisis in her country. She believes that rain could make a difference.
She hopes that the rains will allow those that are able to return to their villages to grow their own crops. I hope people like me who cannot go home can still get a life in the urban town. They can have something to live on. I hope there will be good weather and people will be stable.