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https://www.ft.com/content/bdbb57ab-84a8-48b2-ae6f-6177f7830064

Like millions of Afghans, Sibghatullah Ahmadi was happy about the end of 20 years of war in his country. Fighting had devastated his village in Kapisa, a province near Kabul. But four months after the Taliban seized power and the US pulled out, he has little to cheer.

Jobless and in debt, the 25-year-old now plans to leave his two-year-old child and pregnant wife to cross into Iran, where he will look for work on a construction site. Many like him opt to continue on a perilous overland journey to Europe. “I have to go,” he says, his surgical mask barely concealing the grimace. “It’s better than nothing. We have no money.”

Since the Taliban took the capital Kabul in August — following a rapid military offensive — the foreign funding that made up nearly half of the country’s $20bn gross domestic product under former president Ashraf Ghani has stopped. Millions of Afghans who depended on the armed forces, bureaucracy or international organisations are now out of work or owed months of wages.

Sanctions, and the freezing of more than $9bn in overseas central bank reserves by the US, have isolated the regime and further paralysed the economy.

International groups and economists say Afghanistan’s swift unravelling is unprecedented. The IMF expects the economy to contract 30 per cent in a matter of months. Already the poorest country in Asia, according to the UN Development Programme, millions of Afghans are now unable to afford food. Unicef estimates that 1m children are at risk of dying from hunger as the freezing winter depletes food supplies and cuts off rural communities. The..."

https://www.ft.com/content/bdbb57ab-84a8-48b2-ae6f-6177f7830064

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