Afghanistan's brutal winter

Mass unemployment under the Taliban and the rocketing cost of food are leading to starvation, says Pamela Constable

- Pamela Constable

Ankle-deep in mud and slush, a woman named Farzana, 32, squats and scrubs clothes in a bucket. When she stands, her hands are stiff and red. Her daughters are out begging for bread; her sons are collecting rubbish to use as stove tinder. At night, in a mud-walled hut on the outskirts of the Afghan capital, the family of seven huddle together under blankets as the heat slowly dies.

"I never imagined we would be living like this," she says with a laugh of lingering disbelief. "We had a good house once, but it was destroyed by fighting in the war. My husband had work, but now there is none. As a mother, it pains me to send my children out in this awful cold, but we have no choice."

As 40 million Afghans struggle through a second winter since the return of Taliban rule, many are facing conditions far worse than during the first. The weather has been exceptionally harsh, with temperatures often near zero at night. More than 160 people nationwide have died of hypothermia. So have at least 200,000 goats, sheep and other livestock. In isolated northern provinces, many roads are blocked by snow and little emergency aid can be delivered.

According to the World Food Programme, nearly 20 million people face acute food shortages this winter and 6 million face "emergency-level food insecurity". Many foreign aid projects, which distributed food and supplies across the country last winter, have been cut back or suspended because of an impasse between international donors and Taliban authorities over women's rights.