QADIS, Afghanistan — When temperatures plunged well below freezing in the village of Niaz Mohammad in January, the father of three struggled to keep his family warm. One night, he piled up in his little wood stove all the sticks he had collected. He searched for trash he could burn, covered the windows with plastic sheeting and held his 2-month-old son in his arms.
However, the cold was merciless. The baby fell silent. Her tears turned to ice. By the time it dawned, he was dead. “The cold took him away,” said Mohammad, 30.
Afghanistan is gripped by a winter described as the harshest in more than a decade, lashing millions of people already affected by famine and disease. By the end of February, more than 200 people had died of hypothermia and 225,000 head of cattle had perished, authorities said.
The harsh temperatures come at a particularly difficult time. In December, the Taliban government banned women from working in most humanitarian aid organizations, causing many groups to suspend operations.
Afghanistan’s Ministry of Disaster Management has tried to fill the gap, working with local organizations to provide some food and cash aid, officials say. But the response has been hampered by the difficulty in reaching far-flung communities and by sanctions from foreign governments.
The cuts have already been felt across Afghanistan, which fell into a humanitarian crisis after Western troops withdrew in August 2021. About half of the country’s 40 million people face life-threatening food insecurity, the UN said. .
In Mohammad village, in northwestern Afghanistan’s Qadis district, the first cold snap in January brought 500 patients a day to the village medical center, said Zamanulden Haziq, the director.
One recent afternoon, Bahaulden Rahimi, a 60-year-old herdsman, was trying to find land to graze his sheep when he received a call that the mountains would soon be covered in snow. He went straight home.
Now, he worries that he has simply put off the fate of his herd. Feed for the sheep was running low, and its price had more than doubled on the local market in recent months, she said. He had come down with a cough, and 13 of his 80 sheep had already died from the cold, a loss of about $3,000 that threatened the life of his family.
“Losing the sheep is like losing a family member,” he said. “This is all we have.”
By: CHRISTINA GOLDBAUM and YAQOOB AKBARY
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6602492, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-03-08 23:10:06
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