‘People are not as afraid of the Taliban... the problem now is our empty stomachs'

Just weeks after the jihadist takeover, the Afghan economy is at an abrupt and perilous standstill, writes Pamela Constable

- Pamela Constable

Amman Nasir, 18, used to make steel safes in a workshop on a contract with the US army. Now the American forces are gone, the workshop is locked and Nasir, along with all 15 other employees, is jobless.

His neighbour Sharifa Ali, in her forties, had to close her tailoring shop after the government fell to the Taliban in August and customers stopped coming. Forced to sell her best kitchenware in a flea market, she is hoping she won’t have to part with her sewing machine, too.

“Every family is facing the same crisis,” says Nasir, who had piled some blankets from home on a sidewalk, hoping someone would buy them. “People are not as afraid as they were when the Taliban first came. The problem now is our empty stomachs.”

Across the Afghan capital, evidence of the country’s fastunravelling economy is everywhere – from the angry crowds of unpaid government workers waiting outside banks that have run out of cash, to the tent camp of war-displaced families that has taken over the main city park, to the jumbled piles of household goods that have sprouted on corners and vacant lots.

In a matter of weeks, several cascading events – the final withdrawal of US troops, the mass surrender of Afghan forces, the collapse of the national government and takeover by Taliban militants, and a chaotic mass evacuation punctuated by a deadly airport bombing – have brought the Afghan economy to an abrupt and perilous standstill.