With Ramadan underway, Afghan families survive on bread and tea

With Ramadan underway, Afghan families survive on bread and tea
A family eats at their home in one of the poor neighborhoods of Kabul, Afghanistan, May 21, 2022. (AP Photo/File)
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Updated 25 March 2023

With Ramadan underway, Afghan families survive on bread and tea

With Ramadan underway, Afghan families survive on bread and tea
  • Living costs have skyrocketed since the Taliban took control in August 2021
  • UN estimates 70 percent of Afghans now depend on aid, as most are jobless

KABUL : The holy month of Ramadan is a time of celebration and unity, but with Afghanistan’s economy near collapse, families are resorting to desperate measures to buy food, with many surviving only on bread and tea. 

Since the Taliban took control of the country in August 2021, living costs and food prices have skyrocketed, while most adult Afghans are jobless. 

The UN estimates that 28 million people, or nearly 70 percent of the population, now depend on aid to survive. But even that assistance is limited as major international organizations have stopped operations in Afghanistan under its new rulers. 

As the Muslim world celebrates the holy month, with families planning flavorful dishes to enliven sahoor meals before sunrise and iftar dinners, in Afghan households that mood is no more. 

“In the past, we prepared iftar and sahoor not only for ourselves but also for security personnel and those living around us, but now we have nothing at all, only green tea and dry bread,” Shamsia Hassanzada, a former women’s rights activist and head of a kindergarten in Kabul, told Arab News.  

“Five members of our family, including me, used to work, but now only one person is working, and his income is not enough to meet our family’s needs.”  

Mohammad Naeem, a resident of Kabul who used to work as a driver for the Ministry of Defense under the previous administration, was glad that since the withdrawal of US-led forces from Afghanistan in 2021, the country has been safer and more peaceful, but the economic situation has not left much room to rejoice. 

“Believe me, I did not make a single piece of clothing for myself in the last two years because of a lot of economic problems at home,” the 71-year-old said. 

He has not received his pension for the past few months.    

“In the past, I had different types of foods at our iftar and sahoor, but now we have no food,” he said. “If I eat meat, it is somewhere at a charity, but I cannot buy it at the market for my family.” 

Fasting and charity are among the five main obligations of Islam, and during Ramadan, there is a strong focus on helping others, but that is hardly possible now when families have to fend for themselves. 

“Keeping the fast for the whole day and then having nothing for iftar and sahoor is so hard and painful for me and for most Afghan families…Most of us have nothing except green tea,” said Karishma Nazari, a women’s rights activist. 

“We had a lot of rich countrymen across Afghanistan who would donate and help many poor families. Unfortunately, these countrymen also left the country after the Taliban took control.” 

Sayed Omar, 35, who used to work for the previous administration in Kabul, has been taking odd jobs for the past two years to keep nine family members afloat — a duty that makes it hard to extend charitable deeds to others. 

He goes to the city every day to look for an opportunity to earn but often returns home empty-handed. 

“It’s very difficult to support my family,” he said. “In the past, we had enough food for both iftar and sahoor, even we were sharing our food with our neighbors, but now I’m entirely preoccupied with my family.” 


Sudan refugees strain cash-strapped Chad’s hospitality

Sudan refugees strain cash-strapped Chad’s hospitality
Updated 11 sec ago

Sudan refugees strain cash-strapped Chad’s hospitality

Sudan refugees strain cash-strapped Chad’s hospitality
  • They are among 90,000 people who have escaped to Chad since fighting broke out in Sudan in mid-April
  • Tensions have risen over water use, which is traditionally sourced from communal wells
KOUFROUN: There used to be one family in Fanna Hamit’s compound, now there are 11 families struggling to get by selling roasted crickets after she took in relatives fleeing the conflict in Sudan.
They are among 90,000 people who have escaped to Chad since fighting broke out in Sudan in mid-April — a major extra burden on one of the world’s poorest countries.
Even before this emergency, Chad was hosting 600,000 refugees from its war-torn neighbors and grappling with a fourth consecutive year of acute food shortages. Overall, around 2.3 million people are in urgent need of food aid, the World Food Programme warned earlier in May.
“The extraordinary hospitality of the Chadian government and its people has been demonstrated yet again ... but the scale of this crisis requires more funding to save lives,” UN aid agency OCHA said in a call for increased international support.
Hamit, a 58-year-old widow with six children of her own, has had to make careful economies to provide for those sheltering in her compound, most of whom arrived in this border village of Koufron with nothing.
Squeezed into the open-air compound, the women cook together over small braziers in the sand as children play around them.
“They share everything with us: their food, their toilet, their clothes and all the rest,” said 78-year-old Kaltouma Yaya Abderahmane, who pitched up at Hamit’s door in the middle of the night in late April.
The sudden arrival of large numbers of people has also distorted the market for goods and squeezed water supplies in Chad’s remote and arid borderlands.
“Let’s not even talk about sugar ... it’s doubled in price,” Hamit said, also lamenting the higher cost of grains and peanuts.
Tensions have risen over water use, which is traditionally sourced from communal wells. Some refugees at the Goungour refugee camp, south of Koufroun, told Reuters they had been barred by locals from drawing water in a nearby village and had to dig their own wells in dry riverbeds.
Hamit said she tried to help “even the refugees who have set up shelters nearby .... they come to us for water”.

“The situation is tough for everyone.”

At least 10 dead, 55 injured as bus of Hindu pilgrims falls into gorge in Indian-controlled Kashmir

At least 10 dead, 55 injured as bus of Hindu pilgrims falls into gorge in Indian-controlled Kashmir
The overloaded bus was on way to Katra from Punjab state when it fell off the highway bridge. (AP)
Updated 7 min 16 sec ago

At least 10 dead, 55 injured as bus of Hindu pilgrims falls into gorge in Indian-controlled Kashmir

At least 10 dead, 55 injured as bus of Hindu pilgrims falls into gorge in Indian-controlled Kashmir
  • The overloaded bus was on way to Katra from Punjab state when it fell off the highway bridge and into the gorge near Jammu city

SRINAGAR: A bus carrying Hindu pilgrims to a shrine in Indian-controlled Kashmir skid off a highway bridge into a Himalayan gorge Tuesday, killing at least 10 people and injuring 55, police said.
The bus was on way to Katra town from the northern state of Punjab’s Amritsar city when it fell into the gorge near Jammu city, police said.
Local police officer Chandan Kohli told reporters that the bus was overloaded. He said the dead were from India’s eastern Bihar state.
Residents and authorities rushed to the accident spot and launched a rescue operation. The injured have been hospitalized.
The shrine of Vaishno Devi in Katra is highly revered by Hindus and hundreds of thousands visit it every year.
India has some of the highest road death rates in the world, with hundreds of thousands of people killed and injured annually. Most crashes are blamed on reckless driving, poorly maintained roads and aging vehicles.


Prominent Somali politicians protest at election overhaul deal

Prominent Somali politicians protest at election overhaul deal
Somalia’s government announced an agreement on Sunday that a one-person one-vote system would be introduced in June 2024. (AFP)
Updated 37 min 20 sec ago

Prominent Somali politicians protest at election overhaul deal

Prominent Somali politicians protest at election overhaul deal
  • Somalia’s government announced an agreement on Sunday that a one-person one-vote system would be introduced in June 2024
  • Eight prominent politicians, among them former president Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and four former prime ministers, issued a statement Monday objecting to the agreement

MOGADISHU: A group of leading Somali politicians denounced Monday a move to overhaul the country’s electoral system and introduce universal suffrage, charging that there was a lack of broad consultation and that some of the proposals were unconstitutional.
Somalia’s central government and four federal member states announced an agreement on Sunday that a one-person one-vote system would be introduced with local elections set for June 2024.
It followed a pledge by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in March to end the complex clan-based indirect voting system in place for more than half a century in the troubled Horn of Africa nation.
Sunday’s agreement reached at a meeting of the National Consultative Forum also calls for a single presidential ticket in which voters would choose a president and vice president, effectively quashing the post of prime minister.
The proposals still have to be approved by parliament.
But about eight prominent politicians, among them former president Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and four former prime ministers, issued a statement Monday objecting to the agreement.
“We applaud efforts to get the country to a level of one-person one-vote and a multi-party system... that enforces democratic governance,” they said.
However, they charged that making a decision of such national interest “without the full representation of all federal member states, will put the unity of the people in jeopardy”, referring to the absence of Puntland’s president Said Abdullahi Deni at Sunday’s meeting.
“Making changes in the power-sharing mechanism and the governance system of the country without in-depth consultation, without consulting the public, will lead to a breakdown, a lack of confidence and the disintegration of society.”
The signatories voiced their opposition to a new electoral calendar calling for parliamentary and presidential votes in the federal states on November 30 next year, beyond the current expiry dates of some mandates.
They also objected to plans to limit to two the number of political parties able to contest elections, saying it meant that “power will be confined to a small group of people”.
Somalia is struggling to emerge from decades of conflict and chaos while battling a bloody insurgency by Al-Shabab jihadists and natural disasters including a punishing drought that has left millions facing hunger.
The country has not had one-person, one-vote elections nationwide since 1969, when the dictator Siad Barre seized power.
However, in a landmark move on Thursday, Puntland held direct elections for local councils, with Somalia’s international partners voicing hope they would inspire increased democracy across the nation.


Typhoon Mawar lashes eastern Taiwan, northern Philippines as it heads for southern Japan

Typhoon Mawar lashes eastern Taiwan, northern Philippines as it heads for southern Japan
Updated 55 min 20 sec ago

Typhoon Mawar lashes eastern Taiwan, northern Philippines as it heads for southern Japan

Typhoon Mawar lashes eastern Taiwan, northern Philippines as it heads for southern Japan
  • With waves crashing on the shoreline, residents of the Taiwanese fishing town of Yilan secure boats and homes against the stormy conditions

YILAN, Taiwan: Typhoon Mawar lashed Taiwan’s eastern coast with wind, rain and large waves Tuesday but largely skirted the island after giving a glancing blow to the northern Philippines. The storm was moving slowly toward southern Japan.
With waves crashing on the shoreline, residents of the Taiwanese fishing town of Yilan secured boats and homes against the stormy conditions.
“I will not worry. The typhoon won’t make landfall now. The typhoon will move northward from the sea in the east of Taiwan. Its strength has also weakened. And there is no wind and waves in the fishing port at present. I don’t think it will affect us,” said Wang Jian-chi, a fishing boat owner.
The coast guard said precautions were being taken, just in case.
“We have issued a high surf warning. The wind and wave are very strong. We hope that beachgoers won’t come near the beach and embankment at this moment. We will also send coast guard personnel to patrol the port to warn beachgoers,” said coast guard officer Wang Hsing-chieh as he patrolled the port with his team.
Although the slow-moving typhoon has lost some of its ferocity since smashing into Guam last week, forecasters in the Philippines said Mawar remained dangerous with maximum sustained winds of 155kph and gusts of up to 190kph.
People in the Batanes province of the Philippines prepared for bad conditions, but were largely spared.
“I’m on the roof, but I’m not being blown away by the wind,” Juliet Cataluna, a Batanes provincial official in the coastal town of Ivana, told The Associated Press by cellphone. “I wish we’ll really be spared from damages — our livelihood, our agricultural produce and our houses.”
After seeing earlier forecasts that Mawar would be stronger, townspeople in Ivana placed sandbags on their tin roofs and covered glass windows with wooden boards. Cataluna added that she wrapped her avocados with sack cloth so they would not be blown off trees.
Town leaders used motorcycles to deliver constant typhoon updates, she said, and fortunately only light rains and occasional wind gusts have hit Ivana.
The typhoon was offshore about 350 kilometers east of the Batanes capital, Basco, and is projected to shift northeast by Wednesday toward southern Japan. Strong winds were still forecast for Taiwan, and authorities in the Philippines warned against complacency, saying the risks from dangerous tidal surges, flash floods, landslides and typhoon-enhanced monsoon rains remain until Mawar has safely blown away.
More than 3,400 villagers remained in emergency shelters in northern provinces, flights to and from Batanes remained suspended, and classes have not resumed in more than 250 cities and towns in the north, according to the Office of Civil Defense.
Winds lashed nearby Cagayan province Monday, causing an unoccupied wharf warehouse to collapse and prompting more villagers to move to evacuation centers.
Mawar tore through Guam last week as the strongest typhoon to hit the US Pacific territory in over two decades, flipping cars, tearing off roofs and knocking down power.


Ukraine peace plan is only way to end Russia’s war, says Zelensky aide

Ukraine peace plan is only way to end Russia’s war, says Zelensky aide
Updated 30 May 2023

Ukraine peace plan is only way to end Russia’s war, says Zelensky aide

Ukraine peace plan is only way to end Russia’s war, says Zelensky aide
  • Ukraine sees courting Global South as top priority
  • Russia has built ties with the region during war

KYIV: Kyiv’s peace plan is the only way to end Russia’s war in Ukraine and the time for mediation efforts has passed, a top aide to President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
Chief diplomatic adviser Ihor Zhovkva told Reuters that Ukraine had no interest in a cease-fire that locks in Russian territorial gains, and wanted the implementation of its peace plan, which envisages the full withdrawal of Russian troops.
He pushed back on a flurry of peace initiatives from China, Brazil, the Vatican and South Africa in recent months.
“There cannot be a Brazilian peace plan, a Chinese peace plan, a South African peace plan when you are talking about the war in Ukraine,” Zhovkva said in an interview late on Friday.
Zelensky made a major push to court the Global South this month in response to peace moves from some of its members. He attended the Arab League summit in Saudi Arabia on May 19, holding talks with host Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Iraq and other delegations.
He then flew to Japan where he met the leaders of India and Indonesia — important voices in the Global South — on the sidelines of the Group of Seven summit of major economic powers in Hiroshima.
While Kyiv has staunch backing from the West in its struggle against the Kremlin, it has not won the same support from the Global South — a term denoting Latin America, Africa and much of Asia — where Russia has invested diplomatic energy for years.
Moscow has bolstered ties with Global South powers during the war in Ukraine, including by selling more of its energy to India and China.
In response to a Western embargo on seaborne Russian oil imports, Russia has been working to reroute supplies away from its traditional European markets to Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who was in Nairobi on Monday hoping to nail down a trade pact with Kenya, has repeatedly traveled to Africa during the war and St. Petersburg is due to host a Russia-Africa summit this summer.
In a sign of how Ukraine is trying to challenge Russia’s diplomatic sway, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba embarked on his second wartime tour of Africa last week.
Ukraine’s Zhovkva said winning backing in the Global South was a top priority. While Ukraine focused on ties with Western partners at the invasion’s start, securing peace was a matter of concern for all countries, he said.
He played down the prospects of calls for dialogue with Russia made by Pope Francis who described Ukraine’s occupied territories as a “political problem”.
“In this period of open war, we don’t need any mediators. It’s too late for mediation,” he said.

‘Peace Summit’
Zhovkva said the reaction to Ukraine’s 10-point peace plan had been extremely positive at the G7 summit.
“Not a single formula had any concerns from the (G7) countries,” Zhovkva said.
Kyiv wanted G7 leaders to help bring as many Global South leaders as possible to a “Peace Summit” proposed by Kyiv this summer, he said, adding that the location was still being discussed.
Russia has said it is open to peace talks with Kyiv, which stalled a few months into the invasion. But it insists that any talks be based on “new realities”, meaning its declared annexation of five Ukrainian provinces it fully or partly controls — a condition Kyiv will not accept.
China, the world’s second-largest economy and Ukraine’s top trade partner before the war, has touted a 12-point vision for peace which calls for a cease-fire but does not condemn the invasion or oblige Russia to withdraw from occupied territories.
Beijing, which has close ties with Russia’s leadership, sent top envoy Li Hui to Kyiv and Moscow this month to encourage peace talks.
Zhovkva said the envoy was briefed in detail on the situation on the battlefield, at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, the power grid and the transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia, which Kyiv says is a Russian war crime.
“He listened very attentively. There was no immediate response … we will see. China is a wise country which understands its role in international affairs.”