Foreign governments have frozen development aid to the Afghan government, unwilling to use their taxpayers’ money to prop up the Taliban
Qafas Kalay, Afghanistan — A group of Afghan children were grazing sheep in fields near the village of Bolak Wandi in eastern Helmand when they spotted a metallic object half-buried in the ground. Crowding round excitedly, they argued over who had found it first and who could sell it for scrap.Three more children died from their wounds as they were taken to hospital by Taliban fighters who had been nearby. Another died on arrival.
There has been one unintended consequence: in a previously unreported development, the Afghan government agency that oversees mine clearance told Reuters it had lost its roughly $3m funding and laid off about 120 staff in April — the majority of the organisation — because it couldn’t pay salaries. Almost 80% of civilian casualties from “explosive remnants of war” are children, the UN mining agency estimates, partly due to their curiosity as well as their regular role in collecting scrap metal to sell to bolster families' incomes.
DMAC’s funding is part of roughly $9bn a year in international development and security aid that the World Bank says been frozen since the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, which relies on foreign donors for the bulk of its budget. Sørensen stares out of the window of a car on the way back to the capital Kabul from Qafas Kalay, a small village in the eastern district of Khaki Jabbar, an area once used by Soviet forces as a military outpost and which more recently saw heavy fighting as the Taliban took the area.still need to cleared. Across Afghanistan, thousands of unexploded devices lie in wait, the UN demining agency says.
A few kilometres away, children on the doorstep of a mosque pore over cartoons that show different kinds of explosive devices and the kinds of places they might be hidden.“We don’t go to that place and we report it to our parents,” the children repeat back enthusiastically. Since returning to power, the group has kept girls’ secondary schools closed and demanded women cover their faces in public and only leave home with a male relative or husband.
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