Struggling to survive in cash-starved Afghanistan

BBC
Apr 21, 2022

Struggling to survive in cash-starved Afghanistan


Five-year-old Fazlur Rahman has a stage four tumour in his neck and Afghan doctors are battling to prolong his young life with chemotherapy.

He lies in an overcrowded and under-resourced cancer ward in Kabul's Jamhuriat hospital, one of just three cancer centres still functioning in the country.

At the hospital you can see the impact aid is having, but also why more is needed.

The treatment is free, as the International Committee of the Red Cross has stepped in to fund essential hospital services, but patients now have to buy at least some of the medicines themselves.

The Afghan economy has been left shattered by the aftershocks of the Taliban takeover, and even raising around $100 is a major challenge for the child's father, Abdul Bari, a farmer from the remote west of the country.

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