The worst drought in twenty years, various sanctions, and rising wheat prices caused by the war in Ukraine are aggravating food shortages in the long-suffering country.

(...) "I was not overly afraid of the return of the Taliban, but of the drought, which drained our only source of income and food," says 37-year-old Afghan Rahimi, who now works in the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas, where he arrived in November in search of work. As a construction site labourer, he earns approximately 3.50 US dollars a day, money he sends home to support his seven-person family in Afghanistan's Balkh province.

Afghanistan's political and economic turmoil has coincided very poorly with the most serious drought period of the last twenty years. Climate change is expected to severely impact the country in the coming decades, as the ousted Afghan government and the UN predict extreme temperature rises. Afghanistan, which is already one of the world's poorest countries and whose economy has been cut off from potential support, is very poorly prepared to address the problems caused by global warming and drought.