Ten million children in Afghanistan are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance, UNICEF Afghanistan warns as the UN’s World Food Programme seeks $200m in food aid.
Children in Afghanistan already survive on humanitarian assistance and approximately a million are expected to suffer from life-threatening malnutrition this year, according to UNICEF.
David Beasley, executive director of WFP said 14 million people – one-third of the Afghan population – face food insecurity “because of several years of drought, conflict, economic deterioration, compounded by COVID”.
The World Bank has suspended aid to Afghanistan, freezing hundreds of millions in funding. It has provided $5.3bn since 2002 and has 27 projects there. Last week, the IMF blocked the delivery of payments.
Meanwhile, the US and its Western allies are stepping up evacuation efforts after US President Biden stuck to an August 31 deadline to withdraw troops from Afghanistan.
More than 70,000 people, foreigners and Afghans, have been evacuated since August 14, the day before the Taliban swept into Kabul.
The United States military has airlifted 19,000 people from the airport in Kabul in the past 24 hours as the pace of the US evacuation effort increased, Army General Hank Taylor told reporters at a Pentagon media briefing.
There were 11,200 people evacuated on 42 US military flights and 7,800 transported on charters and by other countries, Taylor said.Presently there are about 10,000 people at the airport inside the security perimeter awaiting departure, he said.
“This is a snapshot in time and, as we said yesterday, will continue to change as more people are able to come on to the airfield and as flights depart,” Taylor said.
