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Afghans hit by food price hikes as Pakistan shutdown bites
Since Pakistan closed Nato supply routes, ordinary Afghans, foreigners alike are feeling impact of soaring food costs.
Afghan workers carry sacks of peas on carts at a market in Kabul January 23, 2012. PHOTO: REUTERS
KABUL: With snow piled deep in front of his small Kabul shop and a border shutdown enforced by Pakistan driving up food prices and severing a vital lifeline into Afghanistan, Asmatullah is having his own winter of discontent.
Since Pakistan closed supply routes to Nato forces in Afghanistan after the coalition killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in a cross-border air attack in November, ordinary Afghans and foreigners alike are feeling the impact of soaring food costs.
“I have lost 50 percent of my customers,” Asmatullah says, somehow managing a smile as he surveys his empty shop, surrounded by cartons of eggs and milk, boxes of cigarettes, drinks and crates of bottled water, now frozen solid on the icy pavement outside.
“Everybody has less income now, so people are just not able to buy. When the border is closed, the prices go up,” he said, huddled in a black hat and leather jacket to try and keep one of the most biting winters for years at bay.
The border shutdown, which Pakistan has promised to lift at a time still to be decided, underscores Afghanistan’s reliance on food imports through its mountainous eastern border, rather than from Iran in the west and longer, more costly, routes north through ex-Soviet Central Asia.
Most food imports come from India, Dubai and Pakistan, and are trucked into the landlocked country from Karachi, entering Afghanistan through turbulent southern Kandahar province, in Spin Boldak, and Torkham, in eastern Nangarhar province.
Since the Pakistan border closure, the cost of trucking or flying supplies into the country for US forces has soared from $17 million a month to $104 million, figures from the Pentagon in US media showed this month.
At the three-storey Finest supermarket, popular with foreigners and locals and the target of a deadly suicide bomb last year, owner Matiuddin says the cost of importing a container of food has soared from $8000 before the border closure to around $23,000.
“It’s a huge problem. Everybody is yelling. If they don’t solve it soon we are going to have to close our business,” Matiuddin said in his cramped office, slamming his hand on an ageing fax machine in frustration.
“We are just having to let food expire and keep it on the shelves in hope of selling it.”
Since the shutdown was imposed, prices for a kilo of chicken have jumped from 200 Afghani ($2) to 250 Afghani. Tomatoes have more than quadrupled and those for cheese doubled.
Housekeeper Nadira Habibi, 37, said that even with her husband and a son working, it was becoming too difficult to feed her family of seven.
“Before we spent around 20,000 Afghani a month ($400), but now it’s more than 30,000, which we’re just not able to afford,” Habibi said.
Reader Comments (27)
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That’s it…. Moral of the story YOU GUYS ARE NOTHING WITHOUT PAKISTANI SUPPORT… Now get on to your knees and say SORRY////
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I feel so sorry for the poor people. But really, there’s no point of opening the routes for NATO…………….. its time they pay the price for their satanic deeds………….
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Mayor of Kabol…………..open your eyes ……………Apparently Afghanistan has a daddy too!
On a serious note: These afghans would danm care how we suffer but still my heart goes out
to those who got nothing to do with hate. We as Muslims have to ensure they dont suffer
but then who cares about real islam anymore?
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It’s sad that ordinary people are suffering. Shouldn’t it be the NATO that should suffer for what they did.
There should be a way to support these people for food.
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So i take it by this same logic, Afghanistan would be justified in building a dam on the Kabul river which flows into Pakistan, correct?
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Pakistan is setting a very bad precedence.If Pakistan persists with this attitude, it will end up with an enemy to its west. Pakistan must allow essentials for the common Afghan people to ply. This is bad foreign policy, specially so with a neighbor.
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Why doesnt India supply food to its puppet’s (Karzai) people? Since India is the ‘best friend’ it needs to supply the basics to Afghans. But alas, India is only interested in selling arms and providing training to Afghan army, so it can wage endless war against its own people and create unrest in its neighboring countries.
Afghans should realize who is their friend and who is their enemy!! India is DEFINITELY NOT a friend of Afghans.
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No wonder they hate us. Surely, NATO supplies can be identified from essential supplies for Afghanis. BUT for that.. one needs compassion.
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What does stopping NATO supply got to do with regular food exports to Afganistan from pakistan ?
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@Anoni:
and what about people hungry in many parts of the globe due to economic sanctions by US and West?
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I thougth that the suspension was only for Nato supplies? Does the ban cover the afghan transit trade as well? In any case we should let food supplies through to Afghanistan. Why make the poor citizens suffer. They already have next to nothing.
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@Raka: hahaha agree that it bad foreign policy but this also reminds me that US at one point in time dumped its excess wheat into the atlantic rather than release it to the market in fear of bringing down prices. Can you believe it? A billion people in the world malnourished and a country dumps tons of wheat in the ocean. How is that for policy?
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I feel sorry for poor afghans, and they must realized that Afghanistan is land locked country and without pakistan, their survival is very difficult. Now they must turn to indian and asked indians to provide food instead of smuggling bollywood movies to doctarine afgans against Pakistan
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Maoist : Your comments lack sense. If pakistan has stopped all exports to Afganistan whether that of NATO or not, why would it allow exports from India via Pakistan to Afganistan.
If u guys dont drag India in every issue, i guess, u cant get sleep.
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Now PAK people will understand why the Afghans do not consider PAK as a reliable neighbor.
When the Brits carved out the present Afghan border, they cut their access to sea for various reasons of global politics of that time and the Afghans and Balochs and Afghans and Brits did an agreement.
PAK will be doing this cat and mouse game with Afghanistan for another 20 years in the guise of India -PAK politics in the future, and one day Afghan and Pak will be fighting over this to bitter end.
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I must say, Pakistan really knows how to make enemies
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@John B: Pakistan is not the only country from where Afghanistan can access the sea…why dont they sign a transit trade agreement with Iran :)
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@mumbo:
Let us face the reality. People along the Durrand Line live(d) as one homogenous unit and historically major flow of commerce on goods went from east.
I care less about PAK belligerence on NATO supply route blockade but food supply to the Afghan nation should be out of the equation. The PAK conflict is between NATO and PAK and not between Afghan and PAK. This is how average afghan will feel. Who suffers the most in this. Only the poor and hungry and it may create an unrest in Pak among Afghans.
What if in retaliation PAK containers are not hoisted out of the ship in the docks of EU and US?
As I said, afghan and pak will be fighting over this for time to come.
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@Slayer: From your statement it appears you are trying to justify this blockade of civilian food supplies. I am afraid you don’t understand that Afghanistan will eventually survive all this. They will also retain this memory. So i simply do not understand what Pakistan will achieve from this extreme measure.
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@Yuri Kondratyuk:
When exactly were they our friends?
Remember what they did to those leaders way back
who leaned towards Pakistan. That was way before
1979 FYI.
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Afghania is North Pakia and Pakia is South Afghania.
.
Given that every Afghani is BY RIGHT a Paki. Paki authorities should be ashamed of closing the border to Food transit for the Pakis living on the other side of the IMPERLIST Drawn Durand Line.
.
Such short sighted policies and practices of PAKI governments have hurt the Paki-Afghan people in the past, and this particular on-going stupidity is presently hurting the UNCONQUERED Pakis.
Pakia can continue is negotiations with America and its mercenaries for the transport of THEIR goods; but food for the Northern Citizens of the United Islamic Republics should be delivered to them immediately and at ZERO profit.
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@MAHER ALI:
Salutations, Maher Ali.
The Afghans (of the Islamic Republic) and Pakis (of the Islamic Republic) are ONE NATION UNDER GOD. It should be the Pakis who go down on their knees and beg forgiveness from GOD and from the citizens in the Northern Part of the United Islamic Republics.
The PPP government is working for FOREIGNERS when their actions raises the cost of FOOD for people living in the northern part.
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@MAHER ALI:
Salutations, Maher Ali.
The Afghans (of the Islamic Republic) and Pakis (of the Islamic Republic) are ONE NATION UNDER GOD. It should be the Pakis who go down on their knees and beg forgiveness from GOD and from the citizens in the Northern Part of the United Islamic Republics.
.
The PPP government is working for FOREIGNERS when their actions raises the cost of FOOD for living in the northern part of the United Republics.
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@Maoist:
Why should the people of the northern region of the United Islamic Republics have to be fed by India? Also, with friends like India who needs enemies? It should be a moral compulsion for people from the southern part of the United Republics to ensure that nobody in the northern part goes short of food.
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The sooner Afghanistan realizes that they are not only dependent on Pakistan for its very survival but also for internal peace, the better.
One must not boast of something they can’t achieve Mr Karzai
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I am glad that the Afghanis are learning that their back biting ways against Pakistan will only harm them.
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And you wonder why the Afghani people don’t like you?
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