My calls and emails to family in Afghanistan go unanswered. The Taliban’s internet shutdown has left us all helpless

Afghan boys fly a kite on the rooftop of a house in Kabul on 29 September after the Taliban ordered a sweeping shutdown of internet and telecommunications services across the country. Photograph: Wakil Kohsar/AFP/Getty Images

The internet was my lifeline, a slender thread connecting me from Australia to my family in Afghanistan, bridging continents and time zones.

But that bridge has crumbled.