14 years later, CTV News' Paul Workman returns to a changed Afghanistan

As he drives through the streets of Afghanistan, Paul Workman describes a range of emotions from being back in the country he last travelled to more than a decade ago.

"Well, it is really strange to be back here. I left under pretty traumatic conditions last time I was here in 2008," he said.

"To see it now is, in some ways, quite sad. I'm looking around and there's an abundance of food along the street and yet we know that millions of people are malnourished, if not starving."

Not long before Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine in February, CTV News' Chief International Correspondent Paul Workman travelled to Afghanistan, a country gripped by war for years and now faced with a humanitarian crisis under Taliban rule.

His personal reflections on returning to Afghanistan aired Sunday night in the CTV News special "Reporter's Notebook: Paul Workman in Afghanistan."

Following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the U.S., Workman spent years covering Afghanistan, a country where more than 40,000 members of the Canadian Armed Forces served and 158 Canadian soldiers died.

Canada officially ended its military mission in Afghanistan in March 2014.

Last year, in a turbulent exit, the United States withdrew its last remaining forces from Afghanistan, ending its 20-year war there and the longest in American history.

With the economy collapsing after the Taliban regained control of the country, and added restrictions on education and dress for women and girls, life has seemingly returned to the "same very difficult, harsh situation for all of the people who live here," Workman said.

"I hope viewers will come away with a sense of just how desperate and dire life is in Afghanistan today. Especially for girls and women who suffer the greatest abuse," he said.

"The story I tell in this special, the despair I witnessed is their story."