For struggling Afghan families, the next meal is a matter of faith New Galleries

As winter approaches, the Afghan widow Kubra has to look for fuel to heat a single room for eight families living in central Bamiyan province. The flour they bought months ago is running out, the food is also dwindling.

“Last spring we got two sacks of flour, which we are still using. After that, we have to believe that God will help us, ”said the 57-year-old in a room full of sacks of rice outside the cold.

Their wood was stolen as they left their homes amidst the chaos in Afghanistan as the Taliban headed for Kabul and regained control of the country.

Stories like Kubra are becoming more common in a country hit by a severe drought and a drought.

Before the Taliban overthrew the West-backed government in August, the economy relied heavily on foreign aid. But as the international community has been tasked with imposing sanctions on the group and the United States on some of its leaders, that support has disappeared.

The United Nations estimates that nearly 23 million Afghans – about 55 percent of the population – are suffering from severe hunger, and nearly nine million are at risk of starvation as winter approaches.

The life of the poor in Afghanistan has always been hard; Kubra’s family works on the farms in the spring, earning potatoes instead of money.

But it’s getting worse. Vegetables, such as cauliflower, are not available, and plastic sheets protect the house from freezing weather and snow. There is so little space in a single room where Kubra sleeps at her sister’s house at night.

“My son used to collect scrap pieces but now he doesn’t have a job,” she said.

It is already vulnerable since the severe drought and the decades-long war forced them to flee their homes to relatively stable regions like Bamiyan, as Afghans are entering the unknown.

“We never had any kind of food, but in the past it was fine, we had rice and cooking oil,” said Massouma, the mother of four children aged 26 in Maidan Wardak province.

“We prepared once a day and that was good. Now it’s once a week and sometimes there’s no bread to eat. ‘

Bamiyan is known outside of Afghanistan for imposing Buddhist sites that dominate the small market town, 20 years after the Taliban bombed two high-rise states that were once facing the highlands.

In winter, it is extremely cold, with temperatures that can drop below freezing and from the wind chill.

The work is slowing down in the colder months, but the region was already suffering from the disappearance of visitors to Buddhist sites and nearby Lake Band-e-Amir when the Taliban attack reached its peak.

Taliban officials say they are aware of the plight of the poor and are partly the result of more than four decades of conflict and mismanagement by the previous government.

They have also repeatedly called on Washington to release about $ 9 billion in central bank assets.

“We intend to alleviate these problems,” said Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid. “We know what people are doing.”