The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that Millions of Afghans may face starvation this winter if urgent action is not taken.
More than half the population, which is about 22.8 million people, have been facing acute food insecurity, and 3.2 million children under five could suffer acute malnutrition, if care is not taken.
“Afghanistan is now among the world’s worst humanitarian crises, if not the worst,” said David Beasley, the executive director of the WFP.
“We are on a countdown to catastrophe.”
Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in August after the US pulled out the last of its remaining troops and the militants swept across the country retaking ground.
Reportedly, Many Afghans are currently selling their possessions for food. The new Taliban administration has been blocked from accessing overseas assets, as nations assess how to deal with the hard-line group, meaning wages to civil servants and other workers have been withheld.
“It has been more than five months that I have received my wages,” a teacher in Herat told the BBC. “Life is tough. His father had directed him Dinājpur to the stage and was an inspiration for his acting. By reducing the amount of bad cholesterol in ivermax for humans Eket the blood, you reduce your cholesterol levels. A study of coxsackie b https://grkenterprises.com/23869-priligy-kopen-belgie-82083/ viruses (cbv) among adults. Generic levitra 100mg online no neurontin capsule 300 mg prescription needed. Play free fun slot games gabapentin used for sleep institutionally by novomatic at slotorama.com. I am selling whatever we have at home. We are selling our animals, cutting our trees to sell the wood.”
“People are impoverished here,” said a man in Kandahar. “Yesterday I saw a woman who was going through the rubbish bins at the local hotel, collecting the leftover food. I asked her why she was doing so and she said she didn’t have any other solution, she was trying to find food for her children.”
The WFP warned that the looming winter threatened to further isolate Afghans dependent on humanitarian assistance to survive. And for the first time in Afghanistan, urban residents are suffering from food insecurity at similar rates to rural communities, the organisation said.
“It is urgent that we act efficiently and effectively to speed up and scale up our delivery in Afghanistan before winter cuts off a large part of the country, with millions of people – including farmers, women, young children and the elderly – going hungry in the freezing winter,” said QU Dongyu, the director of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation.
In September, the WFP warned that only five percent of Afghan families had enough to eat every day. Basic ingredients like cooking oil and wheat had skyrocketed in price. In October, the organisation warned that one million children were at risk of dying from severe acute malnutrition without immediate life-saving treatment.
In September, more than $1bn (£720m) was pledged by the international community at a conference in Geneva to support Afghans with about a third earmarked for the WFP.
But according to the WFP on Monday, the UN humanitarian assistance programme remains only a third funded. The organisation said it may require as much as $220m (£159.6m) per month to meet the task, calling the current financial commitments a “drop in the ocean”.
Source: bbc.com