Donors pledge $1 billion aid for Afghanistan as UN warns of shortages
AFGHANS FACING ‘PERHAPS THEIR MOST PERILOUS HOUR’, UN CHIEF SAYS
Donors have pledged more than a billion dollars to help Afghanistan, where poverty and hunger have spiralled since the Taliban took power, and foreign aid has dried up, raising the spectre of a mass exodus.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said it was impossible to say how much of the money had been promised in response to an emergency UN appeal for $606 million (Dh2.22 billion) to meet the most pressing needs of a country in crisis.
After decades of war and suffering, Afghans are facing “perhaps their most perilous hour”, he said in his opening remarks to a donor conference in Geneva.
Country facing collapse
“The people of Afghanistan are facing the collapse of an entire country “all at once.” He said food supplies could run out by the end of this month, and the World Food Programme said 14 million people were on the brink of starvation.
The Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996-2001 and were toppled in an invasion led by the United States, which accused them of sheltering militants behind the September 11 attacks.
They swept back to power last month in a lightning advance as the last US-led Nato troops pulled out and the forces of the Western-backed government melted away.
With billions of dollars of aid flows abruptly ending due to Western antipathy and distrust towards the Taliban, several speakers in Geneva said donors had a “moral obligation” to keep helping Afghans after
With billions of dollars of aid flows abruptly ending due to Western antipathy towards the Taliban, speakers in Geneva said donors had a ‘moral obligation’ to keep helping Afghans after a 20-year engagement.
a 20-year engagement. Neighbours China and Pakistan have already offered help.
Human rights concerns
But UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet, also in Geneva, underlined the Western misgivings. She accused the Taliban of breaking recent promises by once more ordering women to stay at home rather than go to work, keeping teenage girls out of school, and persecuting former opponents.
Beijing announced last week it would send $31 million worth of food and health supplies. Iran said it had dispatched an air cargo of humanitarian aid.
Pakistan sent supplies such as cooking oil and medicine, and called for the unfreezing of Afghan assets held abroad.
“Past mistakes must not be repeated. The Afghan people must not be abandoned,” said Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, whose country has close relations with the Taliban and would most likely bear the brunt of an exodus of refugees.
The United States pledged nearly $64 million in new humanitarian assistance at the conference, while Norway pledged an extra $11.5 million.
Drought and shortages
Even before the Taliban’s seizure of Kabul last month, half the population — or 18 million people — depended on aid. That looks set to increase due to drought and shortages. About a third of the $606 million being sought would be used by the UN World Food Programme, which found that 93 per cent of the 1,600 Afghans it surveyed in August and September were not getting enough to eat.