In Afghanistan, a famine-stricken family made the terrible decision to sell one of their newborn twins in order to save the lives of the rest of the family. The mother is devastated.
Four months ago, an Afghan mother gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl. At that time, the family consisted of parents and 6 children and they were already experiencing difficulties. The couple not knowing how to ensure the survival of the children, the parents, in despair, then decided to sell one of their babies to a childless couple. The buying couple paid $ 104.
Earlier that same year, the drought caused the mother and her husband to abandon their farm and flee to a nearby town. The father and eldest son had since worked as laborers until the Taliban arrived and left them out of work. Without a solution to the birth of their babies, the parents were forced to abandon one of the newborn twins. “I suffered from having to separate them. It was a very difficult decision, more than you can imagine”, Confides Bibi, the mother to the international charity. Save the Children.
An alarming economic and health situation
In Afghanistan, the economic collapse has dramatic humanitarian consequences. Famine threatens millions of people. The UN fears one of the world’s worst food crises. The economy of Afghanistan is in free fall with the corollary of a humanitarian crisis of great magnitude. More than half of Afghans are unemployed. A UN report states that more than one in two Afghans will face critical levels of “acute food insecurity” between November and March 2022. International bodies have already put in place emergency aid programs. However, their scope remains limited.
The situation is alarming, to the point that the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has alerted to the situation of millions of people in Afghanistan “living in inadequate shelters, with limited access to basic services, including sanitation and health care“.