Displaced families seek food and shelter in Kabul

Hundreds of Afghan families who have been camping at a Kabul park after the Taliban took over their provinces begged for food and shelter.

The Taliban’s swift takeover of Afghanistan this month, culminating in the capture of Kabul on Aug. 15, has thrown the country into turmoil.

While thousands of people have crowded the airport to try to flee, many others, like the families in the park, are stuck in limbo, unsure whether it is safer to try to go home or stay where they are.

According to Zahida Bibi, a housewife sitting under the sun said, “I’m in a bad situation. My head hurts. I feel very bad, there is nothing in my stomach.”

Ahmed Waseem, displaced from northern Afghanistan said those in the park were hoping the central government would pay attention, “We are in an open field and in the heat,” he said.

A Taliban spokesman said, the group was not providing food to the people at the park and others at the airport because it would lead to further overcrowding. They should return to their homes.

Afghanistan’s western-backed president and many other officials fled after government forces melted away in the face of the Taliban advance.

The group has placed its members in ministries and ordered some officials back to work but services are yet to resume, with banks still closed.

Phalwan Sameer, also from northern Afghanistan, said his family came to Kabul after the situation rapidly deteriorated in his home town.

“There was a lot of fighting and bombing as well. That’s why we came here. The houses were burned and we became homeless,” he said.

The World Health Organization said, it has only enough medical supplies in Afghanistan to last a week after deliveries were blocked by restrictions at Kabul airport and the U.N. World Food Programme said the country urgently needed $200 million in food aid.

The United Nations says more than 18 million people, over half of Afghanistan’s population require aid and half of all Afghan children under the age of five already suffer from acute malnutrition amid the second drought in four years.

READ ALSO: EU to allocate over 200 mln euros in humanitarian aid for Afghanistan

Kamila/Reuters