Afghanistan’s last resort sinks in the Strait of Hormuz |
Afghanistan’s last resort sinks in the Strait of Hormuz
It is paradoxical: a landlocked nation is now the victim of a naval blockade. As a result, feeding Afghan children has become so expensive that humanitarian agencies can no longer afford it. Aid ceases to be a response and becomes mere fiction.
The workers who were burned alive on Monday, June 1, came from far away – Afghanistan and Pakistan – and were between 19 and 29 years old. They were farmhands breaking their backs in the fields for wages that are rightfully denounced as exploitation. It is entirely justified to be outraged by the conditions in which they worked; it is right to speak of the caporalato – the illegal gangmaster system – and of agricultural supply chains that rely entirely on the blood of the invisible. One can also consider the arguments of those who see their presence as an unresolved issue that concerns immigration, rules and resources.
But we should also ask ourselves exactly what they were living for. They weren’t there because of a natural famine or earthquake: just 5 million children and mothers dying of hunger in Afghanistan day after day, quietly, as is preferable for those who do not want to disturb Western talk shows. It is almost certain that every single penny those young men earned in the fields was spent to save their families, either here or there. The few euros they managed........