The humanitarian situation in Afghanistan continues to worsen in the wake of the fall of Kabul to the Taliban on August 15 last. The cash-strapped Taliban regime is struggling to meet the humanitarian needs of the Afghan population, already hit by decades of war. And with $7 billion worth of Afghan assets, parked in the Federal Reserve Bank of the US, virtually frozen, the crisis is only aggravating by the day. According to reports, about 23 million Afghan citizens are on the verge of starvation, including millions of children who cannot even crawl or stand due to extreme hunger and malnutrition. One million of these famishing children, says a Unicef report, are faced with the risk of death. The number of deaths due to straitened economic circumstances is feared to surpass the figure of lives lost during the 20-year-long conflict.
With joblessness, hunger and indebtedness so rife in the war-ravaged country, it is extremely difficult for the ordinary Afghans to survive. So much so that a large number of them are now forced to sell their kidneys — for as little as $1,500 — to enable themselves to feed their families or pay off debt. According to AFP news agency, the practice of selling kidneys is so widespread in the western city of Herat that a nearby settlement is sadly nicknamed ‘one-kidney village’.
This is indeed a catastrophic situation requiring urgent global attention. Sadly though, the much-needed humanitarian response is overtaken by strategic interests. Lately, the World Bank has announced more than $1 billion in humanitarian assistance for Afghanistan — to be disbursed through UN agencies and international NGOs. However, there is need to ensure that the money reach the disbursing arms and onwards to the Afghan citizens as early as possible. Besides, the response needs to be supplemented with more and more funds.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 4th, 2022.
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