In the middle of the freezing Afghan winter, Seddiqa Khaleqi burns plastic bags with cardboard and scraps of timber to heat a pot of water.
Her children wait inside, huddled beneath a giant blanket the entire family sleeps under as the house has no heating, the roof is damaged and the walls are cracked.
Today, she is feeding them pasta that was donated by a neighbour.
"I have nothing, life is so hard and bad," she tells the ABC.
"There is no work. We struggle to feed our kids. We have nothing to eat and drink.
"We have nothing to wear. We are only able to stay warm if the neighbours send us firewood. Winter is scary."
Life on the outskirts of Kabul has always been tough for the mother of four, but since the Taliban swept into power in August last year, Seddiqa has been unable to find any hope.
Her husband can no longer get work and ends up spending most days begging for bread at bakeries.
The family is also in debt, after paying for cancer treatment for her daughter, who died last year.
She lost another daughter two years ago due to malnutrition.
Now, it's a struggle to keep her remaining four children alive.
"I give birth to children but they either die or get sick," she said.
"I have been married for 18 years; I have not seen a good day."
Hunger and poverty have long been common in Afghanistan, but the severity of the nation's current crisis is something not seen in over 20 years, before US-led forces toppled the Taliban regime.
But as the insurgents swept back into power, foreign aid that the country heavily relied on dried up over fears donations would support the new regime.
Crops and pastures have withered due to the worst drought in decades and the banking system is paralysed by sanctions, prompting essential goods like flour and gas to skyrocket in price and the Afghani currency to plummet.
More than half the population, 23 million Afghans, are now facing extreme levels of hunger, and 9 million are at risk of famine, according to the United Nations World Food Programme.
About one in two children in Afghanistan under the age of five, or 3.2 million, are at risk from acute malnutrition.
The situation has become so dire that families have even resorted to selling their own children.
Ibraheem Bahis, a consultant for the International Crisis Group, said the sanctions designed to punish the Taliban were now hurting the entire country.
"It is as if Afghanistan has become an entity of the Taliban and therefore is subject to sanctions," he said.
"Rather than punishing the Afghan people and making life difficult for them, we can restructure the sanctions regime so it targets the Taliban, or even within the Taliban, the hardliners, the people the international community wants to target."
Four malnourished babies to one crib in some hospitals
The Taliban has acknowledged the country is suffering economic problems but have tried to deny there is a food crisis, dismissing such reports as foreign propaganda.
But the long queues for food rations and the scenes inside Afghanistan's hospitals tell a starkly different story.
At Indira Gandhi Hospital, the main children's hospital in Kabul, doctors have seen an influx of starving children and babies from across the country due to medical centres closing and a shortage of expertise.
Now, up to four babies are forced to share beds in the malnutrition ward.
"About 130 babies died in [the] last months," the hospital's medical director Mohammad Iqbal Sadid said.
The rate of death from malnutrition was about 2 or 3 per cent and rising, he added.
Many others never make it to hospital.
"A lot of babies, [malnourished] babies, are at home dying," Dr Sadid said.
One mother in the ward, Shahperai, said her two-year-old daughter had spent half her life suffering malnutrition.
"Her father was in the national army, but he lost his job when Afghanistan collapsed," Shahperai said.
"We don't have money, so we did not use our heater the whole winter."
She said she was thankful her daughter, for now at least, was improving.
"May God bless her with speedy recovery so I can take her home," Shahperai said.
Holding back aid would be 'recipe for disaster'
There have been some improvements at the hospital in recent months.
Staff have received salaries and medical supplies thanks to the International Committee of the Red Cross, Dr Sadid said.
But international aid groups warn the country needs much, much more.
The UN and its partners have appealed for $4.4 billion to provide humanitarian relief to some 22 million Afghans.
US and European diplomats held humanitarian talks last week with Taliban rulers, demanding an improvement of human rights.
Mr Bahis said any effort to withhold humanitarian aid to destabilise the regime would be a "recipe for disaster".
"The way the Taliban has responded to that challenge has been to harden its position and start cracking down on dissent," Mr Bahis said.
"Even if their government was to fragment and we were to see different powers emerge in the country, the thought that the Taliban would simply disintegrate hasn't stood the test of time."
Those stuck in Afghanistan just want Western governments to do more.
"The country is on the brink of a humanitarian crisis and economic collapse. We are requesting the government of Australia to help us," malnutrition doctor Gul Awaz said.
"Healthcare facilities are often overloaded and underfunded."
Kabul mother Seddiqa Khaleqi doubts much will change, so long as the Taliban are in power.
"I swear on God, life will not get better as long as the Taliban are in power," she said.
