Taliban in Afghanistan | A look at what 20 years of war has done to the Afghan people
Afghanistan has been ravaged by four decades of war. In 1979, the then-Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to support the embattled pro-Soviet leader who had just seized power in Kabul. Just 12 years after the Soviets left in 1989. Afghanistan would find itself invaded again, this time by the US. As the US finally withdrew its troops, we look at what 20 years of war has done to the Afghan people.
Hundreds of thousands have died as a direct result of the war since the US invaded Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Countless more, mostly civilians, have succumbed to hunger, disease, and injury caused by the devastating war. (Image: News18 Creative)
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Since September 2020 – the start of the Afghanistan Peace Negotiations – there has been a 46 percent increase in civilian casualties in comparison to the start nine-month period a year earlier. (Image: News18 Creative)
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In February 2020, the US and the Taliban reached a bilateral agreement and in September, the Afghanistan Peace Negotiations formally commenced. Yet, attacks on civilians have intensified. (Image: News18 Creative)
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Afghanistan continues to be one of the deadliest places in the world to be a child. Women have paid a heavy price too. 2020 was the deadliest for women in Afghanistan in the past decade, with at least 390 recorded deaths. (Image: News18 Creative)
The United States’ post-9/11 wars have resulted in mass population displacements. Conservative estimates suggest that at least 37 million people have fled their homes in the eight most violent wars the US military has launched or participated in since 2001. (Image: News18 Creative)
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Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the country saw modest gains in education, health, and women’s rights. And yet, most Afghans continue to live in poverty. And despite the US spending over $9bn on counter-narcotics. Afghanistan is producing record quantities of illicit opium, used to create the drug heroin. (Image: News18 Creative)
