AreaRead the video transcript expand here
Disturbing images from Afghanistan: Taliban fighters trudge through the snow, apparently with armed child soldiers.
After the radical Islamic Taliban seized power in the country, Afghanistan has become increasingly isolated internationally.
This has particularly dramatic consequences this winter.
According to meteorologists, it is the coldest for 15 years.
For more than two weeks, temperatures have been falling well below freezing, down to minus 33 degrees.
According to the Afghan Ministry of Disaster Management, at least 166 people have died directly or indirectly from the cold.
Heavy snowfall, freezing storms and power outages meet great poverty here.
Mohammad Ehsan, grocer
»People have no firewood or charcoal and the international community is looking the other way.
It would be better if these poor people were helped, otherwise many will die from the cold.«
Since the Taliban took power, the economy has been devastated and jobs are scarce.
Faiz Mohammad, cobbler
»We came to the market to work, but there are no customers.
Out of necessity we are now selling these snow shovels because there is nothing else to do.«
Around 80,000 livestock are said to have already died from the frost.
An important source of food and income for many Afghans.
This shopkeeper shows reporters from Reuters how his children are freezing at home despite staying indoors all day.
Asour Ali, Shopkeeper
»Look at these conditions!
If the elderly cannot endure this cold, how can children endure it?
They wake up at night from the cold and cry until morning, they are not feeling well!«
Families like these lack everything: insulated living space, heating, warm clothing.
Some children and young people collect plastic waste.
For some, it's the only thing there is to add a bit of heat.
Mohammad Q., garbage collector
»We live in poverty, so I collect all this plastic and take it home to burn.
This winter is very cold.'
Extreme cold and heat periods are likely to hit Afghanistan even more frequently in the future, as the country is one of the countries most threatened by climate change.
Even before the current cold spell, one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world was raging in Afghanistan.
More than half of the 38 million inhabitants have no secure food supply.
And many aid organizations have suspended their work in recent weeks after the Taliban banned most women members from working in Afghanistan at the end of December.