The aid worker is nervous about talking to the press. He’s afraid the Taliban will threaten him for speaking out. But he believes the story he has to tell is important enough to take that risk. He asks that only his initials be used to protect his identity.
MF is on the staff of an international charity that provides food aid in northern Afghanistan. The charity gives out packages of rice, flour and oil to families who might otherwise go hungry.
The need for such food aid is more critical than ever in Afghanistan under Taliban rule. In March, the World Food Programme estimated some 20 million Afghans are going hungry, double the number of just three years ago.
But getting food aid to the right people is increasingly difficult, says MF.
Members of the local Taliban come to the charity with lists of names of people they think should get the food aid.
It’s not an official request. The Taliban ministry does not directly order the charity to comply. But these letters – or sometimes simply verbal requests – are nonetheless taken seriously.
MF believes that some of the people on the list are genuinely needy. Others, he says, are Taliban members or commanders who would not meet the charity’s criteria for receiving an aid package.
Yet the requests can’t be dismissed. “If we refuse to comply, employees are threatened, detained and even beaten on baseless charges,” says MF.
It’s one of many ways in which the Taliban has cast a pall over aid efforts in Afghanistan even as economic crises are pushing more people into hunger.
NPR interviewed six Afghan aid workers from five Afghan provinces. They shared experiences of the Taliban attempting to divert foreign aid to their members through bullying, threats of legal action and even violence. The interviewees, who requested their locations be kept discreet, span four provinces in both the north and the south.
A bleak time for charities
This interference comes at a time when donations from international governments and…
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