Hunger crisis in Afghanistan: where children can't even laugh because they're so hungry

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In the slums of Kabul, millions live in misery, including many children

Photo:

Christian Werner / DER SPIEGEL

»For a month I've been walking the streets of Kabul in the afternoons to distribute food to children.

I work as an English teacher at the Montessori school >Garden of Flowers<.

Our school used to be a boarding school for orphans, at the moment we're only open during the day, it's something like a pre-school and kindergarten in one.

We provide the children with lunch;

one day I decided to pack what's left of it.

And off we went.

I didn't have to look far to find malnourished children.

Actually, they all don't get much and especially not the right nutrition.

I can see how hungry they are and how needy they are: Many have no shoes or torn clothes and are dirty.

The Taliban returned a year ago.

Many parents have since lost their jobs.

This means that they can no longer go to the market and buy good food.

Now, on top of that, the war in Ukraine is affecting our food supply.

I can't say whether this has made food more expensive in our country.

What I do know: there is less of it.

For example wheat and bread.

In addition, many are ill and cannot find help from doctors.

Medical care has gotten worse over the past 12 months, but it wasn't very good before either.

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Fatima: "I firmly believe that it makes a difference when children know that they have not been forgotten"

Photo: private

So when I walk the streets now, I see a lot of children who are about six to 13 years old.

Many collect plastic bottles and earn a bit of money with it.

Mothers beg with their babies on the side of the road.

I give the girls and boys small packets of food, dried and fresh fruits, plums, almonds.

Depending on what we have available in our depot, I sometimes also give out new shoes or soap and motivate the children to wash themselves.

So that they don't get sick.

Or I give some money, 100 Afghani, that's about one euro.

Now my colleagues and I sometimes take the children to a restaurant where they get lunch.

Especially grilled meat, that's important.

Because otherwise the children live almost exclusively on white bread.

The whole thing is financed by my employer, an organization that has been helping in Kabul for years.

Many neighbors and people in the streets ask me: 'Why do you give the money and all the things to the children - and not to their parents?'

I then say that the gifts would never or only to a small extent reach the children if I were to give them to the extended families.

That's not meant to be bad for the families.

These would distribute the packages to as many mouths as possible.

But I am convinced that at the moment we have to help the children directly and most of all.

They are our future, their bodies need to grow, their brains need to develop.

I truly believe that it makes a difference when they know they haven't been forgotten.

Many girls and boys are so hungry that laughing has become too much effort.

A boy comes to me every day, he says: 'Aunt, will you give me something to eat?' His name is Jangal, but he can't pronounce the 'J' yet, so he always calls himself 'Fangal'.

I particularly like him.

Colleagues are now helping too.

One was initially afraid of the Taliban when she walked the streets working as a woman.

But the Taliban do not intervene.

You let us do our job.

We are not afraid of them.

You ask how things are going in Afghanistan.

I dont know.

The Taliban send conflicting messages.

Sometimes I hear that they also want education for girls.

Then again I see that girls and women are excluded, pushed back.

What saves my homeland is when there is work for everyone again.

Girls and boys have to go to school.

Knowledge is the best way to keep violent thought and action at bay.

And then: The best thing for everyone in a family is when women also earn money on their own;

and it prevents dependency and helplessness.

Bringing food to street children in Kabul is my small deed to save my country.

At first I was overwhelmed.

I was alone, with a few packs of food, and a hundred girls and boys around me.

Everyone yelled at me: >Give me something!<

my days are long

I live with my mother, she is old and sick and wakes up at four in the morning.

I'll make her some tea.

Then I take a shower and clean the apartment.

At eight I go to school.

When our students have had their lunch, I wait out the heat before I set off through Kabul at around 4 p.m., each time to a slightly different corner of the city.

In the meantime, the little ones are already waiting for my colleagues and me.

We walk long distances every day, many kilometers on foot, at first my feet hurt quite a bit.

I'm so tired in the evening.

I shower, go to my room and fall asleep.”

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