When the world faces a demographic collapse, the landlocked country, with 39 per cent of 35.5 million population subsisting below poverty line, cannot escape this detrimental social change. Afghans from all walks of life — celebrities, politicians, sports personalities, power-wielding bureaucrats, even the Taliban— are traumatized in different degrees as prelude to the demographic change ahead albeit unwittingly. Forced to confront the Covid-19 aggression, “a stark reminder: all human beings are equal” to quote Lahore-based journalist Mehr Tarar, there is an all-round mobilisation comprising social media, TV channels, and through public information campaigns, although the message goes almost unheeded beyond major cities. Afghanistan is under extreme poverty and dependent on daily wages for survival. Combined with high degree of illiteracy, denial of access to portable water and sanitary facilities with crowded housing makes imposition of social-distancing and quarantine measures unfeasible. Furthermore, Kabul rulers have a woefully inadequate public health infrastructure. It can hardly conduct 600 coronavirus tests a day nationally (400 in the capital, Kabul, and 100 each in Herat and Nangarhar provinces) against 444 COVID-19 confirmed cases, registered. The actual numbers are likely to be significantly higher.

Herat in the western Afghanistan, a major gateway for the neighbouring Iran, caused the Covid-19 threat with hundreds crossing over to Afghanistan after pilgrimage. In Iran, until 9 April, 66200 persons were affected by Coronavirus contagion, killing 4110. Even then Afghan government cannot promulgate in Herat or its capital Heart city. “The situation in Herat is very serious, and orders to restrict the movement of people will be implemented,” said the health minister.

The proximity of Iran is the singularly major reason for the spread of the virus. The first detection of Covid-19 contagion was in Herat in February. Millions of Afghans have lived in Iran as migrants and refugees for decades. Now the coronavirus menace and reports of refusal of émigré Afghans to testing and treatment in Iranian hospitals caused massive exodus. At least 200,000 Afghans, a number growing steadily, came back from Iran. Officials in Herat fear half of the returnees might be infected with the virus. Afghanistan’s first 22 positive cases were Afghans who returned from Iran There being limited screening facilities at porous border-crossings, the problem aggravates. Unmonitored travel of those who fall through the net indicates countless untraceable contacts throughout the country.

The troubled state faces staggering numbers of internal displacement, resulting in large-scale emigration. Given this wounded reality, it is difficult for the not-so-firm Afghan rulers to envision the possible impact of the pandemic. The layers of insecurity and economic challenges are in the way of combating the Covid-19 aggression which may become more lethal than terrorism and war that imposed long-term insecurity and socioeconomic instability and shattered Afghanistan in the contours of the poorly integrated regions of Central Asia and South Asia.

On top of all this, political fragmentation in Kabul is a major deterrent for most Afghans. Parallel inauguration ceremonies on 9 March by President Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, th erstwhile Chief Executive Officer, are in the way of political stability, although Ghani actually runs the government and was declared the winner following the presidential election last September. The failure to resolve the impasse between the rivals led to the U.S. announcement to withdraw $1 billion in aid. Washington keeps threatening to cut an additional $1 billion from the annual $4.5 billion aid package in 2021 if the deadlock continues.

Now that the USA facing an unprecedented existential crisis, Afghanistan is virtually left in the lurch. “It could face, at worst, a potential state failure, but cutting aid and funding for the state would mean, at best, an even more fragile and dysfunctional state. There will be enduring negative consequences for the interests and national security of other countries, including Afghanistan’s immediate and regional neighbors, Europe, and the United States. Islamic State (IS) and other violent non-state actors could manipulate weak governance and turn parts of Afghanistan into ungoverned territories where security threats foment for years. Ultimately, the world will confront a deepened refugee crisis. But this time it will be overlaid by the virulent threat of continued infection and the boomerang potential of Covid-19, ” appropriately stated two UK-based scholars— Hameed Hakimi, Afghanistan-born research associate for the Asia-Pacific Program and Europe Program at Chatham House, and Dr. Marissa Quie, fellow and director of studies in human, social, and political sciences, Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge, in an essay titled ‘Coronavirus, Shrinking Aid In Afghanistan Could Lead To Expanded Displacement And Migration.’ (IPA Service)