Humanitarian crisis news alert from The New York Times

Just as I was finishing the reading for this week, this news alert popped up on my phone, announcing an article describing a malnutrition crisis that the narrative ties to a ban on female workers put in place by the Taliban.

This is really related more to last week’s topic than this week. It has many of the elements that Linda Polman discusses in her book The Crisis Caravan: complicated geopolitics hindering the provision of badly needed goods, Western journalists citing facts from folks on the ground to which we may now cast a dubious eye, and activities of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). In this case, the article talks about how NGOs have “secured excemptions to the ban [on female workers]” so that they may continue doing their work of providing humanitarian aid.

You can read the full story here: Christina Goldbaum and Yaqoob Akbary with photographs by Kiana Hayeri, “Dying Children and Frozen Flocks in Afghanistan’s Bitter Winter of Crisis”, Feb. 27, 2023. Content warning: it’s a very sad piece about a lot of human misery.