“Hell on earth.” That’s how the World Food Programme’s executive director, David Beasley, describes the world’s largest humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. Twenty million people – nearly half the country’s population – face acute hunger. Reports of people selling their kidneys to buy food have become alarmingly common.
This waking nightmare is a policy choice of the US government. When the Taliban became the de facto government in August 2021, the Biden administration decided to deny Afghanistan’s central bank, Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB), access to most of its $7bn-plus international reserves in the US. Without access to foreign reserves, it is virtually impossible for DAB to fulfill its basic central banking functions. And without a functioning central bank, economic collapse was almost inevitable.
The blocking of DAB assets, and the subsequent executive order setting aside half of those assets for potential compensation for victims of the 9/11 attacks, have been widely condemned by lawmakers, economists, UN human rights experts, civil society organisations, 9/11 victims’ families and everyday Afghans.
