Coronavirus: just another threat to life on the streets of Afghanistan

Covid-19 has struck in a nation hardened by war and used to staring death in the face.

A woman waits to receive alms during Ramadan in Kabul. Picture: AP

The corpse of a young man lay untouched in the darkened stairwell of a Kabul mosque.

Locals were afraid the body — one of three men found in public places in the city that day — was another unclaimed COVID-19 victim, and called the Ministry of Public Health demanding that it be removed. As they waited for a corpse collection team to arrive a small group of onlookers kept their distance, eyeing it warily, holding scarfs to their mouths.

Feet down, head flung backwards on the top step, the dead man’s posture was unusual for a coronavirus victim, but the men who had discovered it decided that it was too dangerous to warrant a closer inspection.

Yet when the team from the health ministry finally arrived, the official who led it had no such qualms, and leant over the corpse to inspect it closely. Wearing a black mask and a cloak slung over his shoulders, as the man crouched down the bystanders suddenly ­realised that the official was none other than the Afghan Health Minister, Ferozuddin Feroz.

When he stood up, the minister was angry. “Who said he died of corona?” he demanded, pointing at the body. “He’s been killed! Even I can see he has been stabbed in the head and eye. Don’t waste my time asking my ministry to collect the bodies of the slain when I am trying to save the living.” Caught between the violence of an intensifying war, the scourge of the coronavirus pandemic and a political crisis involving two rival presidents, Afghans may be forgiven for being unsure as to the cause of death of the bodies that appear among them.

Coming after two superpower occupations, the newest invader to their land swept into Afghanistan in March, carried into the country among the 160,000 Afghans returning home from virus-stricken Iran. Ever since, a combination of denuded medical centres, extreme poverty, residential overcrowding and local resistance to social ­isolation has accelerated the contagion.

Though official figures account for only 2704 confirmed coronavirus cases and 85 deaths, the majority of them in Kabul, the virus may already have killed thousands. Mr Ferozuddin has warned that 110,000 Afghans could die of the virus, which would infect up to 25 million Afghans, 80 per cent of the population, unless its spread was checked.

Staff from international organisations have echoed his warnings. “There are already likely to be hundreds of thousands of cases of infection, and many more deaths than we know of,” Nicholas Bishop from the International Organisation for Migration, said. “It is very difficult to know the true numbers as there is limited testing … and after 40 years of war many ­Afghans have a totally different ­association with death.”

Afghan officials were at first distracted from the threat of the coronavirus by a peace agreement, signed between the US and the Taliban on February 29 in Doha. The deal detailed the schedule for a full withdrawal of US troops but made no mention of a final settlement between the Afghan government and the Taliban.

Worse followed. On March 9, Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, rivals in a bitterly contested presidential election, both declared themselves president and were inaugurated. Later that month the US cut $US1bn from its support of the Afghan government.

The Taliban have since rejected the government’s offer of a Ramadan ceasefire and escalated their attacks on Afghan security forces, which have averaged 55 per day since the peace deal was signed.

Though the government has ordered a nationwide lockdown, it is widely flouted as many Afghans face a choice between working or starving. Even before the coronavirus, 9.4 million Afghans were in need of support for basic food and housing.

THE TIMES