Humanitarian situation in Afghanistan may turn into catastrophe: EU

INTERNATIONAL DESK: The humanitarian situation in Afghanistan may turn into a catastrophe since the Taliban have no access to the funds provided to the country by the international community, Sputnik reported citing a senior official at the European External Action Service (EEAS) as saying on Wednesday.

“The humanitarian situation has already been very bad in Afghanistan before all these events. It risks turning catastrophic soon … Now access to financial means, the funds which the international community made available, which covered 77% of the budget of the Afghan government, civilian budget, military budget 100%, are now not available,” Gunnar Wiegand, the EEAS managing director for Asia and the Pacific, told the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee meeting on Afghanistan, the Russian News Agency reported.

Wiegand said this will hit the population hard and have to find ways to mitigate and avoid a major humanitarian disaster.

“This will hit the population hard and will influence the Taliban’s ability to run the country. We have to find ways to mitigate and avoid a major humanitarian disaster … we need to address the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan to avoid a migration crisis,” the senior EEAS official said.

Earlier on Tuesday (local time), United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned of a looming humanitarian catastrophe in Afghanistan as the last US troops left the country.

Guterres expressed grave concern at what he said was the “deepening humanitarian and economic crisis” in Afghanistan as the country entered what he called “a new phase.”

Meanwhile, there are nearly 10 million children in Afghanistan “in desperate need of humanitarian aid”, said UNICEF Afghanistan Representative, Herve Ludovic De Lys, adding that these children are deprived of their right to a healthy and protected childhood. (ANI)