BBC presenter Yalta Hakeem was born in Afghanistan. His family left Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation in the 1980s. But he continued to gather and deliver news from Afghanistan. He is now back in Afghanistan for the first time since the Taliban came to power 100 days ago.
I know that returning to my home country for the first time since the Taliban came to power last August raises many questions in me.
How much has the country changed since the Taliban overthrew the Western-backed state? Will the long-awaited peace of the people of Afghanistan be achieved? What is the future of women and girls who will be expelled from public life by the new rulers?
I had a question. But I did not expect to hear it myself.
How much mental strength is required to come to work day after day, week after week, after many months without pay?
But I found that directly. None of the public health workers, from health workers in Kandahar to cleaners in Kabul hospitals, have been paid since the suspension of foreign aid.
Yet even today they go to and from work every day. When they themselves are on the brink of misery, they also care for people who have lost hope.
Hospital staff have not been paid for months
Nasr works as a cleaner at the Indira Gandhi Children’s Hospital in the capital, Kabul.
“If we do not come to work, these children will die. How can we abandon them?” He asks me.
Most of the patients are weak. Many are malnourished. The ward should be kept as clean as possible to prevent any infections.
Nasrin says there is no money for transportation. So he walks to work. Come down from the mountain in the morning and after 12 hours of work, have to climb the mountain again.
No matter how bad the condition of the health workers, the patients they care for are in a much worse condition than that.
The United Nations says nearly 2.3 million Afghans are starving. 95 percent do not have enough food.
In Nasr’s working wards, you can see young people affected by the crisis. Gulnara is three years old. She could not open her eyes because she was so weak. The eyes appear sunken. The hair has become thinner. She cries in pain as she tries to get up.
This is exactly what is happening to the children of Afghanistan who are severely malnourished.
Many children in Afghanistan are suffering from malnutrition.
Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen points to the international community. He told me that the suffering of the people of Afghanistan was due to the actions of Western countries.
“If it is said that this country is heading towards disaster and humanitarian crisis, it is their responsibility to take appropriate action to prevent all these tragedies.”
“Other countries that talk about human rights … need to reconsider the actions that led to the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan,” he added.
Most people will agree that the solution to this problem will come from international financial assistance, whether you agree with him or not.
The country’s economy was paralyzed when all international aid was cut off.
“I worked in brick kilns,” someone waiting for work on the street told me. At the time, my salary was 25,000 Afghans ($ 270) a month. Now I can not even earn 2,000 ($ 22) a month. “
Her four children are unwell at home and have no money to buy medicine.
“I have no future, no future for poor families,” he told me.
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