'The situation is worse than dire, it's a very grim picture'

Hit by devastating floods and left with no support from the Taliban, Afghans are being forced to survive on potato peel while battling unimaginable conditions.

- Arpan Rai

A kilo of potatoes in Kabul costs no more than five pence, but even that is unaffordable for many of the Afghans who are battling extreme poverty. Some parents are being forced to collect potato peel from neighbours to feed their children.

Adding to this brutal mix is the fact that humanitarian aid into the war-ravaged country is drying up – a cycle of droughts and flooding has also destroyed crops or rendered farming much more difficult.

Surviving on food scraps is still less desperate than having to marry off a daughter for money, something a number of families in northwestern Afghanistan have reportedly been compelled to do since the Taliban seized power.

The Afghan economy has been battered by decades of occupation and war, leading to foreign interventions – first by the Soviet Union, and then by the United States and its allies – before the Taliban takeover brought yet more instability. That misery has been compounded recently by a series of natural disasters, including heavy rainfall, drought, flash flooding, and unseasonal frost every month of this year so far.

Last Friday and Saturday, massive flash flooding killed more than 300 people in the northern provinces of Baghlan and Takhar, wiping away mud houses and cattle and destroying standing wheat and vegetable crops. “The majority of those who died were women and children who could not run out of their houses in time,” Abdul, a man in his twenties, tells The Independent.