Desperate Afghans resort to selling their kidneys to feed families
India Today
Following the Taliban takeover in August 2021, Afghanistan has been plunged into deep financial crisis. In order to feed their families, several people in the country are resorting to selling their organs.
Jobless, debt ridden, and struggling to feed his children, Nooruddin felt he had no choice but to sell a kidney -- one of a growing number of Afghans willing to sacrifice an organ to save their families.
The practice has become so widespread in the western city of Herat that a nearby settlement is bleakly nicknamed "one kidney village".
"I had to do it for the sake of my children," Nooruddin told AFP in the city, close to the border with Iran. "I didn't have any other option."
Afghanistan has been plunged into financial crisis following the Taliban takeover six months ago, worsening an already dire humanitarian situation after decades of war.
The foreign aid which once propped up the country has been slow to return, with the hardline Islamists also cut off from Afghan assets held abroad.
The trickle-down effect has particularly hurt Afghans like Nooruddin, 32, who quit his factory job when his salary was slashed to 3,000 Afghanis (about $30) soon after the Taliban's return, mistakenly believing he would find something better.
But, with hundreds of thousands unemployed across the country, nothing else was available.
