CNN
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At least 157 people have died in Afghanistan’s harsh winter, Taliban officials said Tuesday. The death toll has doubled for him in less than a week as millions face severe temperatures with minimal humanitarian assistance.
The country has suffered one of the coldest winters, with temperatures plummeting to minus 28 degrees Celsius (minus 18 degrees Fahrenheit) in early January.
The impact is exacerbated by the limited amount of humanitarian aid being distributed in the country after the Taliban banned women NGO workers.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said: twitter On Sunday, it delivered blankets, heating, shelter and other relief supplies to about 565,700 people.
“But in one of the coldest months in recent years, more is needed,” he added.
About 70,000 livestock have frozen to death across the country, Shafiullah Rahimi, spokesman for the Taliban’s Ministry of Disaster Management, told CNN on Tuesday.
Afghanistan has been in an economic and humanitarian crisis since hardline Islamist groups took power in August 2021.
It has been hit by natural disasters and has experienced drought-like conditions for three years in a row.
According to a recent UNOCHA, an estimated 28.3 million people (about two-thirds of Afghanistan’s population) need urgent humanitarian assistance for survival. report.
at least half a dozen major foreign aid organizations It has halted operations in Afghanistan since December when the Taliban ordered all local and international non-governmental organizations to stop female employees from working.
Last week, several senior women UN officials traveled to Afghanistan for four days to meet Taliban leaders in Kabul and urge them to lift the ban and “put national interests first.”
UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said recent policies violated women’s basic human rights.
“…Afghanistan is in the midst of a terrible humanitarian crisis, one of the most vulnerable countries on earth to climate change and isolated,” said Mohammed. statement“We have to do everything we can to close this gap.”
