China provides quake aid to Afghans
KABUL — China will provide 50 million yuan ($7.5 million) of emergency humanitarian aid to Afghanistan in response to an earthquake that struck the country last week, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Saturday. The earthquake on Wednesday left at least 1,500 people dead.
The ministry’s spokesman Wang Wenbin made the remarks in response to a query on the progress of China’s emergency humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan.
The earthquake is the most serious to hit the country in more than 20 years. In addition to the deaths, more than 2,000 people were injured and more than 3,000 houses destroyed, Wang said. The number of casualties continues to rise.
Aid provided by China will include tents, towels, folding beds and other materials urgently needed, he said. The first batch of aid is due to be shipped by charter flight on Monday.
China will work with the Afghan interim government to ensure that relief supplies are distributed as soon as possible, Wang said.
“We believe that with the concerted effort of the Afghan interim government and people from all walks of life, and with the help of the international community, the people in the affected areas will be able to prevail over this blow at an early date, accelerate the reconstruction of their homes and resume normal production and life.”
In Kabul, the Taliban on Saturday called on governments to ease sanctions and lift a freeze on central bank assets in the wake of the quake.
The Taliban are “asking the world to give the Afghans their most basic right, which is their right to life, and that is through lifting the sanctions and unfreezing our assets and also giving assistance”, Reuters quoted Abdul Qahar Balkhi, a foreign affairs ministry spokesman of the interim government, as saying.
While humanitarian aid continues to flow to Afghanistan, funds needed for longer-term development were halted when the Taliban seized control of the country last August as foreign forces withdrew.
Billions of dollars in Afghan central bank reserves remain frozen overseas, and sanctions hamper the banking sector.
Asked about the issue, Balkhi said Afghans’ right to lifesaving funds should be the priority.
The White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said on Saturday that the US government was working on “complicated questions about the use of these (frozen central bank) funds to ensure they benefit the people of Afghanistan and not the Taliban”.