Afghanistan is celebrating a sad anniversary today.
This day, declared a public holiday for the occasion, marks the first anniversary of the return to power of the Taliban.
A year marked by a sharp regression in women's rights and a deep humanitarian crisis.
“We have fulfilled the obligation of jihad and liberated our country”, sums up Niamatullah Hekmat, a Taliban fighter who entered Kabul that day, just hours after ousted President Ashraf Ghani fled the country.
On August 15, 2021, Islamist fundamentalists seized the capital Kabul without a fight, after a lightning offensive carried out throughout the territory against routed government forces, thanks to the withdrawal of American and NATO troops. after 20 years of military intervention in the country.
This chaotic withdrawal continued until August 31, with tens of thousands of civilians in panic rushing to the capital's only airport to be evacuated out of the country, on any available flight.
Stunning images of crowds storming planes parked on the tarmac, climbing onto devices or clinging to a US military cargo plane taking off have marked the world.
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Except for this Monday declared a holiday, no official celebration has so far been announced to mark the anniversary, but state television has indicated that it will broadcast special programs, without further details.
“When we entered Kabul, and when the Americans left, there were moments of joy,” continues Niamatullah Hekmat, now a member of the special forces and assigned to guard the presidential palace.
A year later, the Taliban fighters express their joy to see their movement exercising power today, at a time when, for their part, the humanitarian aid agencies are alarmed to see half of the country's 38 million inhabitants faced with extreme poverty and women's rights under attack.
Women's rights again restricted
But for ordinary Afghans, especially women, the return of the Taliban has only amplified the difficulties.
Very quickly and despite their initial promise, the new masters of the country largely returned to the ultra-rigorous interpretation of Islam that had characterized their first passage to power between 1996 and 2001, severely restricting women's rights.
These are excluded from many public jobs and prohibited from traveling alone outside their city.
In March, the Islamists closed high schools and colleges for girls, just hours after their long-announced reopening.
And in early May, the Taliban's supreme leader ordered women to wear full-face veils in public, preferably the burqa.
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"Since the day they arrived, life has lost its meaning," said Ogai Amail, a resident of Kabul.
“Everything was taken from us, they even entered our personal space,” she continues.
On Saturday in Kabul, Taliban fighters violently dispersed with rifle butts and shots in the air about forty women who were demonstrating for the right to work and education.
An economic crisis hits the country
While Afghans recognize a decline in violence with the end of the war since the Taliban came to power, many of them are being hit hard by an acute economic and humanitarian crisis.
"People who come to our stores are complaining so much about the high prices that we shopkeepers are even starting to hate what we are doing," said Noor Mohammad, a shopkeeper from Kandahar, in the south of the country, the historic cradle and center of power. Taliban.
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"It's death in slow motion": a year after the return of the Taliban, the fundamental rights of Afghan women destroyed
For Islamist fighters, however, the joy of victory overshadows the current economic crisis.
"We may be poor, we may be facing difficulties, but the white flag of Islam will now fly high forever in Afghanistan", rejoices one of them, in guard in a public park from Kabul.