A land worth seeing that has diverse cultural and traditional values has been in a vicious cycle for decades. Civil war, Soviet & US invasions, and corruption have played a key role in turning a beautiful country into the most vulnerable one. The pearl of hurdles for Afghanistan’s people has not stopped yet, with the recent power gaining Taliban having no sustainable plan to run a fragile country, further adding fuel to the fire.
The upcoming winter season is another catastrophic countdown for the buffer state because World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director David Beasley says that “Afghanistan is now among the world’s worst humanitarian crises, if not the worst, we are on a countdown to catastrophe.”
Even with billions of dollars in the name of aid provided to Afghanistan, more than half of the population is facing acute hunger. A nation is considered aid-dependent when 10 percent or more of its gross domestic product comes from foreign aid; in Afghanistan’s case, about 40 percent of GDP was international aid, according to the World Bank.
Many Afghans are now selling their possessions to buy food. The new Taliban administration has been blocked from accessing overseas assets, as nations assess how to deal with the hardline group, meaning wages to civil servants and other workers have been withheld. Even on the Torkhum border, many Afghans are sitting under the open sky, crying over hunger and lack of basic life needs. Through stats and statements from credible organizations, we can sense how the winter season can jeopardize innocent people’s lives.
We could have hundreds of objections to the Taliban regime but ignoring millions of innocents who don’t even know guerrilla tactics, nor are involved in suicide attacks and only want a developing and peaceful Afghanistan, would be an indefensible blunder.
In my humble opinion, Pakistan and the rest of the world should help the Afghan people by providing them with the necessary commodities on humanitarian grounds. An unstable Afghanistan is not in favor of global players, especially Pakistan.
Written By Wajid Ali | Lahore
