Across Kabul, evidence of Afghanistan’s fast-unraveling economy under the Taliban is everywhere
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Amman Nasir, 18, used to make steel safes in a workshop on contract with the U.S. Army. Now the American forces are gone, the workshop is locked and Nasir, along with all 15 other employees, is jobless.
His neighbor Sharifa Ali, in her 40s, had to close her tailoring shop after the government fell to the Taliban in August and customers stopped coming. Forced to sell her best kitchenware in a flea market, she is hoping she won’t have to part with her sewing machine, too.
“Every family is facing the same crisis,” said Nasir, who had piled some blankets from home on a sidewalk, hoping someone would buy them. “People are not as afraid as they were when the Taliban first came. The problem now is our empty stomachs.”
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