Gulam Hazrat (center) gives his children tranquilizers that are cheaper than bread. Some Afghans are forced to give their children tranquilizers to ease their hunger, while others sell their own daughters or organs to make ends meet. Meanwhile, in a country where the Taliban* have taken power and foreign aid has dried up, winter is approaching, threatening millions with famine.
“Our children are crying all the time and cannot sleep, and we have nothing to eat,” says Abdul Wahab. “We have to go to the pharmacy to buy pills and give them to our children.
The organization “Taliban” has been recognized as a terrorist organization and banned in Russia. Abdul lives on the outskirts of Herat, the country’s third-largest city, in one of the thousands of small mud houses that have sprung up there in recent decades, filled with people fleeing war and natural disasters. We ask Abdul and about ten other men gathered around us if they also have to give their children sedatives to fall asleep. “Many, many of us,” they answer.
Gulyam Hazrat reaches into his pocket and pulls out a packet of pills. It is Alprazolam – a tranquilizer commonly prescribed for nervous disorders.
According to doctors, strong medications can cause serious damage to children’s health. Gulyam has six children, the youngest of whom is only one year old. “But I even give him these tablets,” he says. Others show the packaging of escitalopram and serlift, which they say they also give to children. These drugs are commonly used to treat depression and suppress feelings of anxiety. When given to malnourished children, doctors say the drugs can damage the liver and cause a host of other problems – from chronic fatigue to sleep and behavioral disturbances.
After the Taliban came to power, the majority of men remained unemployed. We explain quickly, clearly, and simply what happened, why it matters, and what happens next. Episodes The end of the story: Advertising Podcasts We found out at the local pharmacy that for 10 afghanis (about 10 American cents) you can buy five tranquilizer pills. That’s also the price of a loaf of bread. Most of the families we visited live on bread alone. One woman told us that they eat dry bread for breakfast and soak it in water for dinner.
As the UN has stated, a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding before our eyes in Afghanistan. The majority of the men from the suburbs of Gerat are engaged in daily wage labor, and they have been leading such a difficult life for several years. But when the Taliban seized power in August, their new government was not recognized by anyone, and the flow of foreign funds to Afghanistan was frozen. This led to an economic collapse that left the majority of men virtually unemployed. On the rare days when they have the opportunity to earn money, they receive about 100 afghanis, or a little over a dollar. And wherever we are, there are always people willing to take the most desperate steps to provide for their families.
According to Ammar (this is not his real name, we have withheld it for security reasons), he had his kidney removed three months ago. He showed us a long, still pink scar that runs from his abdomen to his back. Ammar is in his twenties, in the prime of his life (or at least he was before the surgery). “I just had no other choice,” he says. “I heard that it was possible to sell a kidney at the local clinic. I went there and told them I wanted to do it. A few weeks later, I was invited to this hospital. They did some tests and then they injected me with something that made me lose consciousness. It was terrifying, but I had no choice.
Ammar says he sold his kidney three months ago to pay off debts. Ammar was paid about 270,000 afghanis (about $3,100), most of which went to pay off debts he had incurred to provide food for his family. “If we eat today, it means we won’t eat tomorrow. After selling my kidney, I feel like I have only half of myself left. I have a feeling of complete hopelessness, if things continue like this, I feel like I will die,” the young man confesses.
The sale of organs is not a new phenomenon in Afghanistan. It was going on before the Taliban came to power. But now, even after making such a painful choice, people are finding that they still cannot make ends meet. In the empty, cold house, we met a young mother who had also sold her kidney seven months ago. And they also had a debt to pay – money borrowed to buy a flock of sheep. The sheep died in a flood a few years ago, and the family lost its source of income. The 240,000 afghanis (about $2700) the woman received for her kidney turned out to be insufficient. “Now we are forced to sell our two-year-old daughter. The people we borrowed money from are pressuring us every day, demanding that we give them our daughter if we cannot repay the debt,” says this woman. “I’m terribly ashamed,” says her husband, “sometimes I think it’s better to die than to live like this. “We have heard stories about the sale of daughters on several occasions.” “I sold my five-year-old daughter for 100,000 afghanis,” says Nizamuddin. That, we have heard, is less than half the cost of a kidney. The man bites his lip hard, his eyes filling with tears. Hunger robs people of the dignity they have lived with all their lives. “We understand that we are violating the laws of Islam, that we are endangering the lives of our children, but there is no other way out,” says one of the local elders, Abdul Gafar.
Nazia currently lives with her family, but is already engaged. At the age of 14, she will have to leave home and get married. In one of the houses, we met the happy four-year-old Nazia, who was making funny faces while playing with her one-and-a-half-year-old brother, Shamshulloy. “We have no money for food, so I announced at the local mosque that I wanted to sell my daughter,” says her father, Khazratulla. Nazia was sold to marry a boy from a family living in Kandahar province in the south of the country. She will be sent to her future husband when she turns 14. Hazratullah has already received two payments for the future transaction. “I spent the money on food and medicine for my younger son. Look how hungry he is,” says Hazratulla, lifting Shamshulla’s shirt to reveal his bloated belly.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), an independent international humanitarian organization, has reported a 47% increase in the number of patients with malnutrition in its Afghan departments this year compared to last year. The MSF feeding center in Gerat is the only well-equipped facility of its kind, serving not only the city but also the neighboring provinces of Gor and Badghis, where malnutrition rates have increased by 55% since last year. The center has increased the number of beds to accommodate the influx of children seeking treatment, but the clinic is almost always overcrowded. At the same time, more and more children need to be treated not only for malnutrition, but also for other diseases that have developed as a result.
Omid suffers from malnutrition, inguinal hernia and sepsis. At only 14 months old, he weighs only 4 kg, while medical experts say a child his age should weigh at least 6.6 kg. His mother had to borrow money to get to the clinic after Omid started vomiting all the time.
We asked the representative of the Taliban government in Herat, Hamidullah Mutawakil, what the authorities were doing to address the problem of hunger. “This situation is the result of international sanctions against Afghanistan and the freezing of Afghan assets,” Mutawakil said predictably. “Our government is trying to determine how many people need help, but many people lie about their living conditions because they expect to receive aid.”
Despite being shown overwhelming evidence of the dire situation, the Taliban representative continued to insist. He also claimed that the Taliban were trying to create jobs. “We are considering the possibility of opening iron ore mines and a gas pipeline project,” the government official stressed, although this is unlikely to happen in the near future.
Meanwhile, Afghans themselves have admitted to us that they feel abandoned to the mercy of fate, the Taliban government, and the international community. Hunger is a slow and silent killer, its effects are not immediately apparent. And while the world turns away from Afghanistan, the true scale of the crisis may remain unknown because there is simply no one to keep track.