Afghanistan’s acting health minister, Dr. Wahid Majrooh, explained the true effects of Western financial actions that have the effect of shutting down the funding of Afghanistan’s health system: “When we hear messages from the World Bank or the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund donors—whether they say that they have put our funds on hold, or they’ve frozen them—what that means to me is 3,700 health facilities will collapse. That the health of 35 million people will collapse.”
The UN estimates that about 90% of health facilities have closed down, as international support is more worried about the Taliban misusing their funds than about the consequences to human life.
In interviews with the New Humanitarian and Business Insider over the last week, Majrooh explained that food and fuel are gone, that there are no salaries; that the immunization teams for smallpox and COVID-19 are dismantled, and that three million vaccine doses close to expiring won’t be put into arms.
