Today, Kabul awaits a new era, a new birth, in which every aspect of life depends on the leadership of its new Taliban rulers. For the city's poor, who are in the majority here, earning a few hundred afghanis a day to escape starvation has become the sole purpose of life. Millions are forced to live in abject poverty. All this is happening in a country that has received billions of dollars in international aid for almost two decades.
But the United States has frozen nearly ارب 9 billion in Afghanistan. The money could improve their lives, but the United States does not want the money to fall into the hands of the Taliban. No large-scale construction is taking place in the city. Banks are closed and the taps for aid from abroad are closed, now only a few drops are left. A few workers get jobs but the patience of those waiting there is running out.
Hayat Khan is outraged at the looting carried out by corrupt nobles in the last 20 years. "Rich people think only of themselves, they don't care about the poor," he says. I can't even buy bread. These people have filled their pockets with Western dollars and I have not received a single drop of aid. ”No one cares about the poor. When aid comes from outside, the rulers want to see it in the hands of their people, not in the hands of the poor.
Muhammad Anwar, who fortunately has a job, stopped by to listen to my interviews with these workers and then joined the conversation, accusing the Americans of stealing in English.
"We ask the United States, for God's sake, to return to us the money that the Afghan government has frozen," he said. That money should be used to rebuild Afghanistan.
On one occasion, a terrified Taliban official with a black beard intervened and asked us to leave the area. He said the area was dangerous. I didn't see any danger there, but the time and place were not debatable. He was accompanied by Taliban bodyguards who wore military-style sunglasses and were armed with American-made rifles
A large number of Taliban fighters appear in the center of the capital, Kabul, and have renamed it the Islamic Emirate after occupying Afghanistan.
At the airport, they are seen wearing US military uniforms. Across the city, they are seen wearing traditional shalwar kameez and black turbans, all armed with heavy weapons and rifles.
One of the most common complaints over the past week has been rising food prices and parents' worries about feeding their children. Food prices are skyrocketing and millions of people are struggling to make ends meet.
The United Nations World Food Program estimates that 93% of the population does not have access to food. That was 80 percent before the Taliban took over Afghanistan last month.
On the streets and squares of the city, people were seen setting up stalls and carts where they were selling their household goods so that they could buy food with the proceeds. I saw many carts on which people were loading their belongings, ranging from expensive carpets to TV sets and a variety of utensils.
I saw a man selling a rubber plant. But there were more sellers and fewer buyers in this market. There was a lot of frustration in this market of used goods.
