WAR OVER BUT THE BATTLE FOR SURVIVAL CONTINUES

Although Kulangar is no longer a battlefield, a new crisis now threatens the village as well as the rest of the country. The Taliban’s takeover has upended international assistance programs for Afghanistan, a cataclysm for the aid-dependent country. As international organisations try to figure out how to work with the new rulers amid a raft of UN, US and European sanctions, poverty and the cost of food are both soaring.

The price of flour, for example, has more than doubled, exceeding 2,200 afghanis — about $25 — for a 110-pound bag, said Samis, a wheelbarrow porter in the produce market in Khair Khana, a suburb north of Kabul. Like many Afghans, he goes by only one name.

Meanwhile, a cash crunch means that people can barely afford to buy anything, said

Mohammad Zaman, 52, a fruiterer who was tending to the makeshift stall he had set up on the highway divider. “We buy these grapes for 100 afghanis a bag in the morning,” he said, pointing to an array of bagged grapes on the ground. “By the time evening comes, I haven’t sold any, and I have to sell them for 50. It’s just a loss.”

At a high-level meeting on the worsening humanitarian situation, UN. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that Afghans were “facing the collapse of an entire country — all at once.” “After decades of war and suffering, they face perhaps their most perilous hour. Now is the time for the international community to stand with them,” he said. At that meeting, international donors pledged about $1 billion in aid for Afghanistan.