SWITZERLAND. Geneva: The world’s largest humanitarian agency, the United Nations said that it needed $5 billion to provide humanitarian aid to Afghanistan. The UN aims to offer the ravaged country a future after 40 years of suffering.
The organization further added that it needed around $623 million to support the 5.7 million Afghans who are displaced in neighboring countries.
In a statement, UN humanitarian aid chief, Martin Griffiths said, “A full-blown humanitarian catastrophe looms. My message is urgent: don’t shut the door on the people of Afghanistan. Help us scale up and stave off widespread hunger, disease, malnutrition, and ultimately death.”
After the Taliban captured the nation in mid-August, Afghanistan has been having a hard time dealing with surging unemployment, financial chaos, inflation, and other problems. Adding to their problems, the country suffered its worst drought in 2021.
As per the reports, the US has frozen billions of dollars of the country’s assets. Additionally, aid supplies have been heavily disrupted. “Without the aid package, there won’t be a future,” Griffiths told reporters in Geneva.
40 years of insecurity in Afghanistan
Four decades of war and civil strife have shattered bodies and souls of the Afghans. The country now deserves peace and prosperity. After the fall of Kabul, the United Nations had committed to stay and deliver aid to millions of people in need in Afghanistan.
If adequate humanitarian aid isn’t provided to the country, then around 4.7 million people are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition in 2022. This will include more than 1.1 million children too.
The UN aid chief Griffiths noted that without humanitarian aid, death, hunger, and mass displacement would shatter the country. He said that if the UN appeal is accepted then it would help many organizations to increase the delivery of food and agricultural support, emergency shelters, access to water and sanitation, education, and protection.
“If international donors come forward, we will see the opportunity for an Afghanistan which may finally see the fruits of some kind of security,” the UN aid chief added.
Griffiths said the security situation for humanitarian organizations in Afghanistan was probably better now than for many years. He added that the staff in the ministries in Kabul largely remained the same as before the Taliban takeover.
Griffiths said the UN Security Council’s move in December to help humanitarian aid reach desperate Afghans had made the operating environment for donors and humanitarians on the ground much more efficient.
Talking about the impact on education in the Taliban’s reign, Griffiths said, “Around eight million children could miss out on their education because teachers largely have not been paid since August.”
UN refugees chief Filippo Grandi said that the aid package’s goal was to stabilize the situation within Afghanistan. This has been done to ensure the prevention of migrants fleeing across the country’s borders.
“That movement of people will be difficult to manage, in the region and beyond because it will not stop at the region,” he said.
“If those efforts are not successful, we will have to ask for $10 billion next year, not $5 billion,” he added.
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