Children are the most vulnerable and the first to be affected. Infants and toddlers weakened by malnutrition are turning up at Charikar Hospital an hour’s drive north of Kabul in growing numbers, say doctors. 

Khalil Heydari, medical director, said that since the Taliban victory, staff no longer saw the gunshot wounds and blast injuries of the war, but child malnutrition cases had gone up by 30 to 40 per cent. 

He predicts that if the trend continues, improvements in infant mortality rates seen over the past 20 years will reverse. 

“If it continues like this, I believe we will reverse to a very bad situation. If the government continues like this, I do not see a bright future,” he said. 

Shops and markets are still heaped with produce, but the economic devastation and paralysis in the banking sector mean many cannot afford it.