TIME is running out. Following the Taliban’s return, nearly nine million people in Afghanistan, including 1m children, are at risk of starvation. Nine out of 10 people are now said to be existing below the poverty line.

After the chaotic end of the 20-year war last August, the country returned to the grip of the militant Islamist extremists, which has itself plunged the restored Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan[IEA] into further chaos.

Western governments withdrew their representatives and have refused to recognise the Taliban government. They also withdrew their money which accounted for nearly 80% of the previous government’s spending. Foreign aid represented more than 40% of Afghanistan’s GDP.

Last month, the United Nations launched the "largest ever appeal" for a single country, asking for $4.4bn in funding.

Some humanitarian aid is getting through but not enough. David Miliband, head of the International Rescue Committee, argued what was needed was a means of reviving the Afghan economy. "It's essential to get that economy going to give Afghan people a chance to feed themselves.”

The desperate situation has resulted in a surge in inflation and unemployment. There have been revenge killings, former Government workers imprisoned, classrooms for girls closed and hunger is growing amid the freezing Afghan winter.

Sky News reported its team had seen children as young as 12 inside prison, many accused of "stealing bicycles".

Parents have become so desperate they are selling their kidneys and their daughters to get what money they can to feed themselves and their other children.

As if the prospect of starvation was not enough, since the Taliban took over six months ago the country’s health system has collapsed. Dozens of hospitals have been closed and staff have so far only received wages for one month.

Covid is now gripping parts of Afghanistan with just five hospitals in the whole country said to be still offering treatment for the virus. Only around one in four of Afghanistan’s 38 million people have been vaccinated, mostly with one dose.

This week passions ran high in the Commons as the plight of Afghanistan was discussed.

Veteran Conservative backbencher Sir Roger Gale told MPs: “What we’re witnessing in Afghanistan is virtually genocide by starvation. We cannot in a civilised world allow this to continue.”

Andrew Mitchell, a former International Development Secretary, said Britain, which has already pledged £286 million in aid, could and should do more.

“Ninety per cent of people in Afghanistan do not have enough to eat, five million are living in camps, four million are just over the border in Iran and they won’t stay there, they will be heading for Europe and Britain before long…It’s not just an appeal to our humanity, it’s firmly and completely in our own national interest.”

Vicky Ford, the Foreign Office Minister, said UK aid was “supporting over 60 hospitals providing health services to over 300,000 people, ensuring over 4m people are getting emergency food assistance and will provide 6.1m people with emergency health, water, protection”.

Labour’s Hilary Benn warned the “catastrophe” unfolding in Afghanistan would continue unless the Afghan banking system started working again and urged the release of frozen Afghan central bank reserves to restore interbank lending.

After the fall of Kabul, the US Treasury froze £5.2 billion of the previous Afghan administration’s assets deposited in the Federal Reserve bank in New York.

Following attempts by victims of the 9/11 terror attack to get some of the money as compensation, on Friday Joe Biden signed an executive order releasing the frozen Afghan funds, some of which, if a judge agrees, will go to compensating the 9/11 victims while the rest will go towards humanitarian aid for the Afghan people.

The latter portion is likely to go into a special fund to try to keep it out of the hands of the Taliban. But it is far from settled and the process of releasing the money could take some time because of legal disputes; some 9/11 victims want all the cash to be sent in humanitarian aid given the plight of the country.

This week also saw the return of the first British officials to Afghanistan for talks with Taliban chiefs since the UK withdrew its diplomats from Kabul last year. As well as discussing the “dire humanitarian situation,” the officials expressed the UK’s serious concerns about human rights, including those of women, girls and minorities.

At the same time, a Taliban delegation was in Geneva for talks. Swiss officials and agencies like the Red Cross highlighted humanitarian access and human rights.

But Amir Khan Muttaqi, Afghanistan’s foreign minister, made clear any Taliban concessions would be on their own terms.

So far, no country has recognised the new IEA government but Muttaqi noted: "On the process of getting recognition...we have come closer to that goal."

Gordon Brown, the ex-PM, has been one of the strongest advocates for more international aid to be unleashed. “We are witnessing a shameful but also self-defeating failure to prevent famine.”

Calling for an international donor conference, he said: “The money must come now or Afghans will conclude the West will never help them, even in their hour of greatest need.”

While we may be repulsed by the Islamic extremists’ philosophy, we cannot allow this to blind us to what is unfolding across Afghanistan. Surely there must be a way to get more aid to where it is needed without having to validate the odious Taliban regime.

Indeed, it’s in our own self-interest to help save Afghanistan from catastrophe because a shattered state would simply become once more a breeding ground for terrorism and trigger more waves of refugees.

Brown has said: “To turn our backs now on ordinary Afghans in their hour of greatest need would be the final insult: a badge of shame that the free world would carry forever.” He is right.

The West clearly has the ability to help and must exercise moral courage to act or the deaths of thousands upon thousands of people will be on all our consciences.