CNN
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As the sun rises over the dry mountains of Kabul, the daily struggles of families to find water, and the continued effort of it.
The sounds of water tankers sprinting through the neighborhood of Raheela in the Afghan capital, where the four 42-year-old mothers run to the city, filling the buckets and Jerrykans who were abused by their families. The supply of families is constantly falling, and all litres are expensive and they say they divide nerves and budgets.
“We have no access to water (drinking) at all,” Raheela, who goes by one name, told CNN. “Water shortages are a major problem affecting our daily lives.”
Kabul is heading for a catastrophe. A recent report from Mercy Corps has shown that it could soon become the first modern capital in the completely dry world. MercyCorps is a non-governmental organization that warns that the crisis can lead to economic collapse.
Experts say population growth, the climate crisis and unrelenting overextraction are depleting groundwater levels, with almost half of the city’s boreholes already dry.
Raheela’s family must pay for each drop of water and see how to use it carefully.
“We’re deeply concerned,” she said. “We want more rain, but if things get worse, we don’t know how we’ll survive,” she told CNN.
The emergency is “not just a water issue” to Marianna Von Zahn, Afghan Program Director at Mercy Corps. “It’s a health crisis, an economic crisis, a humanitarian emergency.”
Just 30 years ago, Kabul’s population was less than 2 million, but the Taliban fall in 2001 led to an influx of immigrants, piqued by an increase in safety and economic potential.
As the population grew, so did water demand.
Kabul is almost entirely dependent on groundwater and is replenished by snow and melting of glaciers from the nearby Hindu Kush Mountains. However, years of inadequate management and overextraction have reduced these levels up to 30 meters over the past decade, according to Mercy Corps.
Kabul now extracts 44 million cubic meters of groundwater each year than nature can replenish, said the Corps of Mercy.
Some families, like Ahmad Yasin’s, are digging deeper wells and looking for more water to fill the bucket.
Yasin, 28, lives in a joint family of 10 people north of the city. For months he has been queued with his brother for hours every day at a nearby mosque with access to a large well to bring home a full bucket for his children, parents, nie and nephew.
“It was hindering us from our work and impacting our income,” he said. So they saved six months, sacrificed food, came up with 40,000 Afghanis ($550) and dug a well in their backyard.
Yasin and his brothers dug 120 meters before finding water. And although this water is freely available for all basic needs, it cannot be consumed. “It’s not safe,” he said.
“We spent all our money on the wells, so we can’t afford a water filter or purified water. So let the water in the wells boil for a long time, cool and drink it.”
According to Mercy Corps, up to 80% of Kabul’s groundwater is contaminated. This is the result of widespread use of pit toilets and industrial waste contamination.
Diarrhea and vomiting are “a problem that people experience in the city all the time,” says Sayed Hamed, 36, who lives with his wife, three children and two elderly parents.
“We get sick from brushing our teeth in someone else’s home, restaurant or well water,” the government worker said.
The crisis is exacerbated by Kabul’s vulnerability to climate change.
“We’re raining more and more, but there’s less and less snow,” said Najibullah Sadid, a water resource management researcher and a member of Afghanistan’s network of water and environment experts. “It has impacted cities with fewer infrastructure to regulate flash floods… The snow was helping us, but now we are less.
If the current trend continues, UNICEF predicts that Kabul will be able to run out of groundwater by 2030.
Those who have no way to dig hundreds of metres of water must either be at the mercy of private companies or rely on donations.
Rustam Khan Taraki spends 30% of its revenue on water, mainly buying from licensed tanker sellers.
But for families who cannot afford to spend so much, the only option is to walk long distances often to mosques that can provide water.
Dawn sees Hamed, a government worker, lined up for hours at a nearby well to fill two buckets for his family. During the day, two of his children (ages 13 and 9) line up for restocking, skipping school to carry steep hills into the fierce hills under the burnt sun.
Von Zahn of Mercy Corps said the crisis is hitting children’s futures. “The time kids should spend at school is now basically putting water in for their families,” she said.
“These harmful coping strategies further deepen the cycle of poverty and vulnerability for women and children.”
Women are responsible for the majority of this crisis – forced to walk across Kabul for hours, putting their safety at risk under the Taliban oppressive rules that prohibit them from going outside without a mallam or male guardian just to get out the little water of what they can do.
“It’s not easy for women to go out, especially in the current situation where women need to have a male company so that women can go out,” the 22-year-old Kabul resident, who doesn’t want to disclose her name for safety reasons, told CNN.
“It’s a lot of difficulties for all women and girls to go out on their own to get water. They can get harassed or plagued along the way,” she said.
CNN has contacted the Taliban about a response.
Beyond the climate crisis, population growth and mismanagement, the Kabul water crisis is exacerbated by deep political turmoil.
The Taliban seized control of the country in August 2021 after nearly 20 years of war, after a chaotic withdrawal of US-led troops, and tilted the country to the brink of economic collapse as development and security aid to the country was frozen.
Since then, humanitarian assistance aimed at funding urgent needs through nonprofit organizations and bypassing government control has filled some of the gap. But President Donald Trump’s decision to suspend foreign aid earlier this year has further led to the country retreat.
Von Zahn of Mercy Corps said the US Organization for International Development (USAID) fund freeze was “one of the biggest impacts.” By early 2025, only about $8 million had been provided of the $264 million required for water and sanitation.
“So what we’re looking at is a dangerous mix: the collapse of local systems, the freeze-funding funds, the growing friction in the region — ordinary Afghans face an exacerbated crisis every day,” she said.
It leaves the future in Limbo for many people living in Kabul.
When Laheela and her family moved to their current neighborhood a few years ago, she said rent was cheap, the mosque had water and life was easy to manage.
Now she doesn’t know how long she can survive in town.
“We have no other option but to evacuate again,” she said.
