3 yıl önce

UN seeks record $5B in Afghanistan aid, warns of looming 'catastrophe'

UN agencies say millions of children are out of school and farmers are struggling against drought – even as Afghanistan stabilises from decades of conflict after the Taliban takeover in August last year.

AP

The United Nations says 22 percent of Afghanistan’s 38 million people are living near famine and another 36 percent are facing acute food insecurity.

The United Nations has made what it called a record $5 billion appeal to help Afghanistan and its neighbouring countries.

The appeal from the UN Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs and refugee agency UNHCR came on Tuesday as it warned half of the country faces acute hunger.

OCHA warned of looming “catastrophe” in Afghanistan and said 23 million people need humanitarian assistance – or more than half of the country’s population.

Up to a million children under age 5 will face severe and acute malnutrition if they don’t get assistance, it said.

“We need to get food to the families where they live. We need to get seeds to the farmers where they plow," said Martin Griffiths, the head of OCHA.

"We need to get health services to the clinics in locations throughout the country, and we need protection services for all those people who want to return home.”

“This is the largest ever appeal for a single country for humanitarian assistance, and it is three times the amount needed and actually fundraised in 2021,” he said.

The joint appeal seeks $4.4 billion for OCHA and its partners, plus another $623 million for the refugee agency to help more than 6 million Afghans who have fled abroad, or about 15 percent of Afghanistan's total population.

Others continue to trickle across the border, UNHCR said, while noting that an estimated 175,000 have returned to the country since the Taliban takeover.

US aid

Additionally, the White House has announced $308 million in additional humanitarian assistance for Afghanistan, offering new aid to the country as it edges toward a humanitarian crisis.

White House spokesperson Emily Horne said in a statement on Tuesday that the new aid from the US Agency for International Development will flow through independent humanitarian organisations.

The aid will be used to provide shelter, health care, winterisation assistance, emergency food aid, water, sanitation and hygiene services, the statement added.

The USAID called on the Taliban to allow “all aid workers, especially women...to operate independently and securely" as humanitarian groups look to assist those suffering.

“The United States continues to urge the Taliban to allow unhindered humanitarian access, safe conditions for humanitarians, independent provision of assistance to all vulnerable people, and freedom of movement for aid workers of all genders,” the agency said in a statement.

The new aid brings US humanitarian assistance for Afghanistan to more than $780 million since the chaotic ending of the 20-year-old war in August.

SOURCE: TRTWorld and agencies