At least 27 people committed suicide in Afghanistan between May and July, the Kabul-based Tolo News reported on Tuesday.
The recent spate of suicides took place across 11 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, with “six […] reported in Faryab province alone,” Tolo News observed on July 18. Afghanistan has an estimated population of 40 million for reference.
“Two of the male cases were related to poverty and economic challenges, and four female cases were due to some different issues,” Mufti Mohammad Ismaeel Farqani, the criminal director of Faryab province’s police department, told the news outlet on Tuesday.
Afghanistan has suffered from rising rates of poverty and domestic violence since the Taliban seized control of the country’s seat of government in Kabul in August 2021. The Sunni Islam-based terror group ousted Kabul’s internationally recognized government, precipitating political and economic turmoil that continues today.
Washington blocked the Taliban’s access to nearly all of the Afghan central bank’s $9.4 billion in reserves, most of which reside in the U.S., in the days immediately following the group’s takeover of Kabul last summer. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) followed this example and suspended plans to disburse roughly $460 million in emergency reserves to Kabul shortly afterward. The twin financial freezes caused Afghanistan to experience an acute shortage of U.S. dollars, which, in turn, led to rampant inflation.
Afghanistan has remained subject to economic sanctions dating back to 2001 that were imposed by the U.S. and the United Nations (U.N.) in the context of America’s invasion of the country at the end of that year. The nearly two-decade-long War in Afghanistan ended on August 15, 2021, with the Taliban’s reconquering of Kabul, which it previously ruled from 1996 to 2001. Afghanistan was already one of the world’s poorest countries prior to August 2021. It depended almost entirely on foreign donations to fuel its economy during the preceding two decades, meaning its financial crisis post-Taliban has driven its residents into desperate conditions.
“The funding cuts accelerated an economic collapse, fueling a cash crunch and deepening a humanitarian crisis that the United Nations says has pushed more than half of Afghanistan’s population of 39 million to the verge of starvation,” Reuters observed on March 1.
The World Bank on March 1 approved a request by the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF) to disburse over $1 billion in aid to Afghanistan, on the condition that it not fall into the hands of the Taliban. Such isolated emergency relief measures largely serve to provide basic supplies, such as foodstuffs, to starving Afghans. While necessary, they do little to bolster the nation’s spiraling economy. Afghanistan’s financial collapse is reflected in an overall deterioration of the country’s quality of life. This was evidenced by the nation’s increased suicide rate over the past two months.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) issued a report on July 20 in which it documented some likely contributing factors to the country’s recent spike in suicides.
“[A]ccess to justice for victims of gender-based violence has been limited by the dissolution of dedicated reporting pathways, justice mechanisms and shelters,” the agency wrote, referring to women’s shelters for domestic violence victims.
“The human rights situation has been exacerbated by a nationwide economic, financial and humanitarian crisis of unprecedented scale. At least 59% of the population is now in need of humanitarian assistance – an increase of 6 million people compared with the beginning of 2021,” UNAMA observed.
The U.N. agency further reported that the Taliban has ordered “extrajudicial killings of individuals accused of affiliation with armed groups, as well as cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments and extrajudicial killings of individuals accused of ‘moral’ crimes and the excessive use of force by law enforcement officials.”
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid denied that his organization supported such acts in a Twitter statement posted on July 20.
“The UNAMA report on human rights in Afghanistan is not true,” he wrote. “There is no arbitrarily kill or arrest in the country. If someone kills or arrests arbitrarily, the one is considered criminal and will face the Sharia law. The UNAMA report on this matter is not true, but propaganda.”
The Taliban on August 18 confirmed that it would reimpose sharia, or Islamic law, as the foundation for Afghanistan’s legal code after having previously run the country according to sharia from 1996 to 2001. The code of conduct as interpreted by the Taliban forbids women from working and girls from attending school. The Taliban uses its version of sharia to further prohibit females from leaving home unless they are chaperoned by a male relative and veiled by a burqa, which is an Islamic garment that covers a woman’s entire body including her eyes. Sharia enforces harsh corporal punishments for convicted criminals, such as cutting off a person’s hand if he or she has been proven to steal.