Front Burner - A humanitarian catastrophe looms over Afghanistan

Episode Date: October 21, 2021

When the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan, much of the foreign aid to the country was suspended. Today, CBC’s Susan Ormiston tells us about what she heard on the ground about the looming humanitarian crisis.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Alameen Abdelmahmoud, in for Jamie Poisson. It's been nearly two months since U.S. forces pulled out of Afghanistan, marking the end of a two decades long war. The Taliban rules the country once again. A country facing a humanitarian catastrophe

as much of the international aid that once flowed in has been suspended. This leaves many who were already struggling in an even tougher spot and some desperate to get out. CBC's Susan Armiston just returned from Afghanistan. She joins me today to talk about what she learned on the ground. Hi Susan, thank you so much for being here. Oh, great to talk to you and thanks for asking. Listen, this isn't your first time reporting from Afghanistan at all. You've been there before. And I was hoping you could maybe start by telling us a little bit about what it was like for you to be back in Kandahar province,

where Canadian forces were once based. Yeah, it was surreal. I mean, I first went to Kandahar in 2007. And over the last 14 years, I've never been there where it hasn't been actively at war. So all of us, the people who live there, the people who came to wage that war, worried about getting caught in crossfire or getting blown up by an IED in the road, you know, huge amount of tension in between the combatants. This time, there is no active war going on. The Taliban is fully in control, having taken back its heartland. So it was a very different experience. And people I spoke to said the same thing.

They do feel as if there's more security. And by that, I mean more mobility. So easier to travel, easier to go about their daily lives without the risk of that act of war. So it was completely different. Now, I will say that 48 hours after we left Kandahar, a suicide bomber, two of them, blew up the mosque next to the guest house where we were staying.

Ambulance crews rushed to the scene. This is the largest Shia mosque in Kandahar. The province is Taliban heartland in the south of Afghanistan, the group's birthplace and stronghold. And this significantly, the first attack of its kind here. 47 dead, dozens more injured, so still a threat and one the Taliban's really going to have to wrestle with. Right, the context is no longer this active war, but like you just mentioned, like with these suicide attacks that are happening, what's the response been like to these attacks?

these suicide attacks that are happening, what's the response been like to these attacks? Well, you know, the Taliban has been messaging, look, with us in control, having taken over the government in Afghanistan, it's safer, it's more secure, your lives will be better. That's their public message. However, in the last few weeks, while we were there, we saw three suicide bombings, one in Kabul, one in Kunduz, one in Kandahar. And these were targeted at mosques, at religious minorities. But still, that is a huge threat for them to have to deal with. And it also makes people very nervous that in fact, this country which they now run is not as secure as they say it is. And that, you know, contributes to all the uncertainty. There's an undercurrent of uncertainty and tension in Afghanistan right now, no doubt. Now, when I think about Kandahar province, I think a lot of Canadians would be familiar with Kandahar because there was a significant Canadian presence there.

You ended up speaking with Taliban officials there and they had a message for Canada, right? What did they tell you? Yeah, you know, we got access to the new Kandahar police chief, the top enforcement person in southern Afghanistan. And just by context, three of his predecessors as police chief were murdered, assassinated, killed on the job. So this is a very high profile job. Now, he was a fighter in Panjwai district, which is where many Canadians fought and died. in Panjwe district, which is where many Canadians fought and died. And he was still full of condemnation for the war and for the foreign forces who he says invaded Afghanistan and wrought all kinds of destruction, destroyed villages, you know, did nighttime attacks,

he called them crimes. And yet, turning the phrase around, he said, okay, if Canadians want to help Kandahar now, they should send humanitarian aid. And he made that point many times. Look, if you want to make up for the wrongs that you did, in his view, please send international aid. Please recognize our government and send money. international aid. Please recognize our government and send money because the Taliban knows that if people are hungry and jobless, they're going to have a very tough time governing that country. Let's dig into that a little bit more because I understand that from your reporting that the need for that aid is real and immense. What do the people you spoke to tell you about the positions they're in now? Well, you know, Afghanistan is poor and the

majority live on $2 a day. That hasn't changed much since the takeover by the Taliban. And the reality is that war damaged so many people, but it also was profitable as we know war can be. So it injected all kinds of money into the economy. So they had NGO jobs. The foreign governments were underwriting public salaries. 75% of public salaries were paid for by foreign grants. 43% of the GDP of the country is propped up by foreign funds or was, that money has been suspended. Much of it has been pulled out. So if you were in Kandahar and you had a very good job with an NGO, for example, that's gone. Overnight, they retreated, that's out. So a huge chunk of money has been pulled out and people everywhere were saying, look, the Taliban is in control, okay, but there's no jobs, there's no work, and we're having trouble getting enough money to pay for basic things like food. And it was stunning, really, to see this layer of jobs disappear and with no guarantee that they'll be replaced. I mean,

we were in the Kandahar airport and the security guys doing the, you know, checks of your baggage through the conveyor belt. They took us aside and said, we haven't been paid in three months. We heard that a lot. Teachers hadn't been paid in three months. There's a cash flow problem. And that's why the Taliban is sitting across from me, not looking at me. The police chief didn't look at me once, but telling me, look, send the message back to Canada and other countries that we still need your assistance. It was ironic and surreal and disturbing. So we have this larger context of this really deep and immense need for aid. But just so I'm clear, and maybe this is a naive question, but the people that you spoke to in Kandahar province, did they generally see it as a good thing that the international forces had left the country? Well, that obviously is disputed and debated

within the whole country. And it depends on where you are. Kandahar province, as you know, was a hotbed for Taliban. It was where they were founded essentially as a movement back in the mid 1990s. You know, if you go to the north, different. I mean, in Kabul, that was a city which had benefited from the 20 years of investment in Afghanistan. It was more progressive. They had, you know, cafes where women and men could go and have a cup of coffee together. That's all gone.

So that's a very difficult question to answer. In some places, like rural areas of southern Afghanistan, yes, they're glad. We talked to villagers in Panjwai District who said the Canadians were good people. Because they came here, they provided some services, and when they realized their war was against the Afghan people, they said to me, they left. And others would say, we hope the Taliban flag flies forever in Panjshir district. But then I speak to a woman whose son was a Taliban fighter who was killed three months ago by an airstrike. He went outside. They brought the dead body back to me. He was martyred. How can I be happy? I lost my beloved son. I'm left with all his children, my grandchildren.

What should I do now? And she's saying, yes, I support the Taliban. I'm glad they're in power, but how can I be happy? My son is dead. He's martyred. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years.

I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income. That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. Now you mentioned Kabul. This is Afghanistan's capital and biggest city. What did you hear from people there about the need for aid? Is the big city facing the same kind of financial problems? It is. We went to a flea market, which has just popped up alongside a ditch in the middle of Kabul. And many of the vendors there were individual Afghans who had

taken household goods and brought them to the flea market to sell. We talked to a man with a wheelbarrow full of two or three large Afghan carpets. And when I asked him, what are you doing? He said, I took these from my house. I'm trying to raise cash. There's no money. There's not enough money to buy food. So, yes, you know, the evidence of poverty in Afghanistan is strong everywhere. I mean, there's people begging on the streets in Kabul. You drive along, children will knock on your window repeatedly, dozens of them in a day when you're traveling around the city. That has been there before. but I think the degree of desperation is increasing.

And I know that NGOs are predicting that Afghanistan could become the number one humanitarian crisis in the world very shortly. We'll see what the data comes out on that. I guess the other part that's hard to wrap our minds around is the poverty and its consequences. So, for example, you went to a hospital and you saw malnourished children, right? Yes. So that broke our hearts. What we're told is happening is that people can't afford to feed their large families, particularly when these revenue streams have been pulled out.

So we spoke to a woman who had twin one-year-olds, and she had brought them to the hospital to save one of them because the littlest one was about eight pounds, about half what a normal one-year-old would weigh. And the woman basically could not make enough breast milk to feed both her babies. She had six other children at home. And so she'd come to the hospital for help, to help the little girl survive. What we learned was that women were coming into the main children's hospital in Kabul

from the provinces, from the areas that many journalists can't or don't get out to as much. And they were coming because ironically, it was safer to travel on the roads. So they could bring their starving children to the hospital to get help. But why were they coming? Because we're told that the health care clinics in their communities were collapsing. Again, probably propped up by various NGO money, you know, subsidized for sure. And the doctor at the hospital, the director of the Indira Gandhi Hospital, probably propped up by various NGO money, you know, subsidized for sure. And the doctor at the hospital, the director of the Indira Gandhi Hospital,

said that that's what they're seeing, that the health care system was collapsing. And he had a message for the international community. The same program should be again started, and the international community should help us like before. If they want to punish the government, this is the not right way. Now this punishment is for our people, for our children, for our women. So I think they can choose another way. So he's saying, and many NGOs are week were talking about humanitarian aid for Afghanistan. Do we have an indication of what the countries, all those countries, but also Canada, what they're going to do now? Well, I think the good news is that the U.S. has frozen Afghan money that's held outside the country, about $9 billion.

They are not going to release that. It's sanctions on the Taliban and on the Haqqani Network. But what they did was they created licenses so that humanitarian groups like the United Nations and other NGOs could actually legally flow money into the country. nations and other NGOs could actually legally flow money into the country. And I think that is a way where governments are going to try to do exactly what the doctor asked, which is to free up humanitarian funds to get in there. But I do think of the smaller NGOs, you know, I do wonder, for example, when I first started my project about going back to Afghanistan, it was in June. And of course, the Afghan forces were still in control of the government. And I came across a program that Canada has run, a $12 million program for girls' education in conflict. And it was started in 2020 and was

run to 2023. So what's happened to that money? You know, I do wonder about these smaller programs, which are stalled as governments struggle with how to support the people, but not support the government. How to not prop up the Taliban, which is why those funds are being suspended, but continue help for the people. It's a very dodgy situation. very dodgy situation. And, you know, the UN has all its resources, but these smaller NGOs that are trying to operate that, you know, maybe supported the clinic in that woman's home in her province, what are they going to do? And how secure are they going to feel about feeding money into Taliban-controlled civil service, municipal services? When I'm thinking back to when the news stories were coming out about the Taliban taking back control of Afghanistan, one of the big threads of conversation was that there was a lot of concern about what was going to happen to the way women and girls would be allowed to live their lives. The Taliban, on the one hand, were insisting that they have changed,

that they'll govern differently this time. What did you find while you were there? I spoke to young university students, an 18-year-old, for example, first-year engineering at a university in Kabul, and she was crying. She basically said, not only can I not go to school right now because there's no classes for me at the moment, but what are my future prospects? There's no indication, there's no messaging from the Taliban that they think women should be in senior engineering roles in this country. She wanted to help the transport network and she was crying saying, I have all these goals and I don't feel like I'm ever going to meet them. I'm so sad. I'm so upset. I feel disappointed and I have lots of goals that I think I won't reach them. And then she said, I don't want to just bear babies as my sole reason for life.

I can't tolerate that future, the prospect of having that as my only role. I want to work, I want to study and do something for my country. Our education is our power. And if women don't have the permission to study, the next generation also will be illiterate. And there's huge amounts of uncertainty. You know, the Taliban has said that this is a temporary phase. They will allow girls in grades 7 to 12 go to school. But we went to a large girls' school in Kabul,

which has been teaching girls for 100 years with some gaps. And 1,000 students were told to stay home this fall. You can imagine. If you had a daughter, September girls around, and you have to tell her, I'm sorry, you can't go to school, period. Well, it might be better in the future, but it might not. And there's the fear of the former regime and how they dealt with women and girls in education or didn't in the last time they were in power. So there's a lot of disbelief that what the Taliban says will actually come to be. And even if they do get to go to school, that the curriculum will be reformed in a way that won't allow them equal access to education or equal rights once they're educated.

And I understand you spoke with two young sisters who were actually leaving the country? Yeah. You know, the evacuation flights are still continuing quietly, many of them run by the Qatar government, who is working, navigating, negotiating with the Taliban to get flights of evacuees out of Kabul. So this was a recent one. And there was a group of about 100 soccer players, girls who played soccer in Afghanistan, who worry that the Taliban will not recognize that senior elite sport is worthy of women. So they're leaving. And this one couple of girls I spoke to, she was 14, and her sister was in her 20s. And she was crying on departure because she said, as a minor, as an underage, through this program, I was allowed to take one guardian with

me to Canada, by the way. And her mother said to the sisters, you two go, you go leave me here. So they left their mother alone behind in Afghanistan and they are coming to Canada. That's utter heartbreak. Yeah, and just imagine a 14-year-old and a 20-something-year-old, I think she was 22 or 23, trying to make their way in a new country on their own. You know, very, very challenging. Now, speaking of these kinds of evacuation flights, you know, it felt like in August and early September, there was so much attention and so much concern

around the many Afghans who were trying to get out of the country as the Taliban were beginning to take over or taking over. Now, when you were there, did it still feel like there were a lot of people still hoping to get out? Incredibly. I was stunned. Again, in my time in Afghanistan, the last 14 years, I've never seen it like this. Everywhere we went, whether in the street, in the hotel, in a hotel restaurant, people would ask us for help. I mean, from the waiter to the porter who helped us with our bags at the hotel, to the security guards at the airport, they would quietly take you aside and say, you're from

Canada, yes. How can you help me? Things are extremely desperate. I need to get my family out. I'm the sole breadwinner for 14 people regularly, stories like this. And believing, sadly, that we had the levers of power to make that happen. You know, they saw the mass evacuation of over 100, I think we're up to 120,000 people out of Afghanistan in August, those frantic, chaotic images of people who were getting out. And they saw that it was possible, only they didn't make it, or they didn't have the right criteria or the right connections. that the Western countries, including Canada, are open to this. And what, sadly, they can't understand or don't want to is that there's a cap on the number of people who come to Canada and that there are criteria for those refugees. So it was stunning.

I mean, I really was taken with the number of people, even with good jobs, who say, I need to get out of here. What it is, is they're looking down the road and saying, what's the future? The Taliban has been very slow to sort of put in place a functioning government. And so there's all this uncertainty boiling away underneath about what the future will bring. Will there be jobs? Will there be education? Will there be repercussions? Will the Taliban be challenged and there will be civil war again? All these things. And they're saying, I've got to get out of here. Susan, thank you so much for painting this picture of Afghanistan right now as it grapples with

the new rule of the Taliban. Thank you so much. Well, you're welcome. Before we go today, some news from Ottawa, where a new parliament will soon be returning. Earlier this week, the House of Commons governing body introduced a new mandatory vaccination policy for members of Parliament when they come back on November 22nd. The Liberals and the NDP required that their candidates be vaccinated during the election campaign. The Bloc de l'Équipe also said during the campaign that all of its candidates were vaccinated.

And the Green Party says both their MPs are fully vaccinated. But the Conservatives have not released similar statistics. And on Wednesday, they announced their opposition to the new measure. The party also expressed opposition to virtual sittings of Parliament. That is all for today. Thank you for listening to FrontBurner. We'll talk to you tomorrow.