Afghans face dire condition in Ramadan amid coronavirus lockdown

Afghans face dire condition in Ramadan amid coronavirus lockdown
Date: 8.5.2020 14:00

Poverty and unemployment coupled with rapidly spreading coronavirus is more than the country can take at once.

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Sunrays shine through colourful pieces of cloth, illuminating the face of Miya Gul with a palette of shades of red and yellow. He sits on the floor of a tent in a settlement for internally displaced people in Kabul.
 
For the past 14 years, the 37-year old and his family have called it home.
 
Miya Gul has been observing the fast from sunrise to sunset since Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, began on April 24. This year, however, the fast has lost its usual meaning.
 
For Miya Gul, his wife Soyra and their six children it has become just another word for starvation.
 
"This Ramadan is the hardest we have ever been through. If we don't find food, we're fasting round the clock," says Miya Gul.
 
"We buy one potato for 10 afghani [$0.13]. People who have money can buy a kilo. And we can afford only one per day."
 
Since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, Afghanistan has been on a brink of economic collapse. The lockdown and state-imposed quarantine have forced many businesses to close.
 
According to data by the Biruni Institute, a local economic think-tank, as a result of the pandemic, six million people have already lost their jobs in a country, where 80 percent of people live below the poverty line.
 
Grim prospects
 
The prospects are grim. With the main donors focusing on battling the virus at home, low resource economies like Afghanistan have been left with little outside support.
 
Last month, the United States reduced funding for Afghanistan by $1bn after the country's top leaders publicly feuded over government formation following contested presidential elections in September 2019.
 
The crisis hit poor families, like Miya Gul's, the most. For those who rely on daily work for survival, the lockdown has meant no income.
 
Before the pandemic, Miya Gul used to work at the local bazaar helping vendors transport their products.
 
Now, as the crisis has affected everyone, few people need his services.
 
"Last year, my income was around 300 afghani [$3.70] a day. Now there is no work, and if there is, I earn around 50 afghani [$0.66]," says Miya Gul.
 
"We have to send our children to work in the streets. We buy food for whatever money they make. Our daughter Nodira sometimes gets a potato or a tomato at the bazaar. She is seven years old."
 
Appeal for help
 
Over the past weeks, the prices of food and other necessities have increased, too. Before Ramadan, a canister of water, Miya Gul said, used to cost five afghani ($0.07).
 
Now the price has increased twofold. As water in the camp is scarce, Miya Gul and his family cannot keep the level of hygiene needed to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
 
Behind a wall surrounding the camp, waste is piling up. The authorities usually remove it after two or three days. The residents do not know why this time it has been there for a month.
 
"This year because of the coronavirus everything has changed, Ramadan too," says Dr Aminuddin Muzafary, deputy minister of Hajj and religious affairs sitting in his office in central Kabul.

YEREL HABERLER

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