<p>WHEN the Taliban <a href="https://www.dawn.com/news/1640974">entered Kabul in August 2021</a>, the world feared Afghanistan was heading towards an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe. Those fears proved well-founded. Yet few imagined that nearly five years later, Afghanistan would remain one of the world’s gravest humanitarian crises despite the absence of a nationwide civil war.</p>
<p>The United Nations <a href="https://www.dawn.com/news/1688868">warned </a>in 2022 that almost half the