LFT’s Emergency Food Assistance: “If we didn’t receive this timely food package, starvation wouldn’t have been far away”
Gul Bakht, a 45-year-old widowed woman, received a food package assisted by the LFT very recently. She is living in the Chihil Dukhtaran suburb area of western Kabul city which is shattered by increasing poverty. Gull Bakht is one of the Afghan women who has been severely affected both by the armed conflict in the country and by the ensuing crises that unfolded after the 2021 regime change in Afghanistan.
Her father was killed in the civil wars of Kabul and her mother also died of the illness and pain she endured for 6 years thereafter. Hence, Gull Bakht as, the only daughter of her parents, was left alone and orphaned struggling with the fate of life until today.
After the loss of her parents, she started living with her uncle who married her off to a man serving in the former Afghan National Army. Unfortunately, her husband was also killed in fighting between the government and insurgent forces. This incident left her widowed and further worsened her situation. She then started living with her nephew who is disabled – from both hands and feet. It has been for years that Gul Bakht is living in Kabul in a rented house where she pays only 8 dollars/month only to have a shelter.
“My disabled nephew, who lost an arm and a leg in the war with the Taliban, lives with me. We both live alone in this poor hut. I have a sickness and have no work or income due to the severity of my illness, and my nephew is unable to work. That’s why I found a house in this corner of the mountain so that we can afford a poor life here, Gull Bakht said with heartrending pain visible on her face.
She had not received any kind of assistance before we reached out to her. “The LFT’s local staff visit to my house was an extremely happy moment for me because no one or organization had come up to this mountain to help us previously, the 45-year-old woman indicated.
“I often hear that there are so many NGOs and people helping the poor but we have not benefitted from it until now. LFT is the first charity that has come to our help with its live-saving assistance and this is the first time we receive such help.”
Thanking the LFT for its timely and critically needed food rations, she said: “A food package of the LFT consisting of a 50 kg bag of wheat flour, 24 kg of rice, 5 liters of cooking oil, 3.5 kg of beans, and 1 kg of salt can feed and help save our life for at least three months.”
“Most of the times, we sustained our life with the food we begged from our neighbors, relatives or some benevolent families around. So, if it we didn’t receive this package, we would’ve been on the brink of starvation, she continued and pleaded for the LFT for continuation of its food assistance for families like hers.