Empty ATMs, soaring prices: Afghans struggle to finance their daily lives

Over a week after the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan's capital Kabul, its residents are reeling from a severe shortage of cash as banks remain shuttered and remittances from abroad dry up. These money transfers have been "extremely relevant" for years, says Afghani-born journalist and author Emran Feroz, as "Afghans have one of the biggest diasporas in the world" and have long relied on help from relatives in Pakistan, Iran, the UAE as well as Germany and the U.S. "Average Afghans don't make much money these days," with many seeing their income drop by 90%, he told DW. "The problem is the banks stopped working three days ago so we might be back to bags of cash," the source told Reuters. The Taliban have named Haji Mohammad Idris as the acting governor of the country's central bank, Da Afghanistan Bank, to help the Afghan economy working again, which was struggling even before the Taliban took control. "The Taliban are going to require substantial outside funding unless they retreat to what they did from 1996 to 2001, which was essentially run the government to minimalist levels," said Michael McKinley, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan in 2015-2016 and is now with the Cohen Group consultancy.