Since the withdrawal of U.S. troops that concluded on August 31, Afghanistan has fallen into a pit of despair as the Taliban continues to rule over the Middle Eastern country.
For one, the economy is on the brink of collapse, causing mass starvation in the midst of the Taliban cracking down on its enemies. Hospitals in Afghan provinces such as Kandahar are filled to the brim with malnourished children.
According to CBN News, humanitarian organizations have for weeks been sounding the alarm on the imminent disaster occurring in Afghanistan, where the Taliban has failed to care for the nations' poor as the country's new leaders. United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) deputy executive director for programs Omar Abdi warned earlier this month, "We will have a humanitarian catastrophe."
Abdi said, "There are millions of people who are going to starve. And there is winter coming, there is COVID raging, and the whole social system collapsed, so not just only health, but also other social services."
Abdi cited food and medical shortage as a the primary concern, as well as fuel shortages that will cause a major collapse in the economy if it is not controlled or supported immediately. Recent surveys conducted by the World Food Program of the U.N. revealed that up to 95% of households in Afghanistan are failing to consume enough food to survive, with parents often skipping meals to keep their children fed.
"As more families struggle to put food on the table, the nutritional health of mothers and their children is getting worse by the day," Afghanistan UNICEF representative Hervé Ludovic De Lys said in a statement earlier this month. NBC News reported that UNICEF warned of the 14 million people in Afghanistan at risk of acute food insecurity and millions more children at risk for severe malnutrition by the time 2021 ends.
But economic collapse and hunger are not the worst of Afghanistan's problems, as terror is. Under the Taliban rule, violent executions have continued as the militant group continues to crack down on its enemies.
"It's horrible. They are back to beheading people. Hunting people down, going from home to home, and just terrorizing the citizens," Washington Examiner investigative reporter Tori Richards said. "It's not the kinder, gentler Taliban that they had promised."
Richards added that there are still thousands of Americans left stranded in Afghanistan almost two months after the deadline of the U.S. withdrawal of troops. She admitted to having spoken to a family whose member has worked for U.S. special operations and added that she had been in touch with a general who wrote to the State Department pleading for them to help the family.
Richards said the family hears gunfire "every night," people being "hung up in the square." She shared how they were "terrified, hunkered down in some home that's not even theirs" for fear of being traced by the Taliban. She lamented how she would hear from the family via text as they wondered when they would be hunted down by the Taliban.
Religious and ethnic minorities are also facing persecution in the hands of the Taliban, while also being targeted by the ISIS-K or Islamic State Khorasan, which claimed responsibility for an explosion at the Shiite mosque in Kunduz.
Christians are also in hiding and living in danger from the Taliban, who have threatened them earlier saying they know where the believers can be found. Reports indicated that the jihadists have conducted mass executions of believers and killed those whose phones contain Bibles.
Please pray for the safety of believers in Afghanistan.
