A Taliban fighter stands guard as people receive food rations distributed by a Chinese humanitarian aid group, during the holy month of Ramadan, in Kabul, Afghanistan on April 30, 2022. (EBRAHIM NOROOZI / AP PHOTO)
The international community is being called upon to give assistance to Afghanistan as recent drought, a conflict-induced economic crisis, and now an earthquake, exacerbate its people’s hardship.
The call came as Chinese aid supplies landed in the country’s capital with experts urging the United States to unfreeze funds belonging to Afghanistan.
Since the disaster, the Taliban-run administration in Afghanistan has called for international assistance amid ongoing rescue operations. Neighboring countries including China, Pakistan and Iran showed no hesitation in giving timely aid to the Afghans
A devastating 5.9-magnitude earthquake hit southeastern Afghanistan on June 22, claiming more than 1,000 lives and injuring almost 2,000 others. Tens of thousands of homes were destroyed.
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Since the disaster, the Taliban-run administration in Afghanistan has called for international assistance amid ongoing rescue operations. Neighboring countries including China, Pakistan and Iran showed no hesitation in giving timely aid to the Afghans.
On the night of June 27, the first batch of earthquake relief supplies donated by the Chinese government arrived at Kabul International Airport and was handed over to the Afghan side.
According to Chinese Ambassador to Afghanistan Wang Yu, the Chinese government decided to provide 50 million yuan ($7.5 million) in emergency humanitarian assistance supplies to Afghanistan, and the first batch of supplies included tents, folding beds and blankets.
Six more Chinese aircraft would deliver relief supplies in the next three days, he said, adding that all food supplies China had promised in assistance to Afghanistan had arrived earlier.
The Taliban government’s Acting Minister of State for Disaster Management and Humanitarian Affairs, Ghulam Ghaws Naseri, thanked China for expressing its condolences and offering emergency assistance supplies immediately after the earthquake, saying this showed the longtime friendship between the people of the two countries.
The US, meanwhile, is being widely criticized, as even at this juncture it has not unfrozen around $9.5 billion of Afghanistan central bank assets, most of which is held in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
“In these testing times, we call on the United States to release Afghanistan’s frozen assets and lift sanctions on Afghan banks so that aid agencies could easily deliver assistance to Afghanistan,” Amir Khan Muttaqi, foreign minister of Afghanistan’s Taliban-led caretaker government, told media in Kabul on June 25.
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In an interview with Reuters, the Taliban government’s foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi also said, “The Islamic Emirate is 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.”
Imtiaz Gul, executive director of the Center for Research and Security Studies in Pakistan, told China Daily, “This is indeed unfortunate that Afghanistan has no access to its critical assets in times of urgent needs largely because of political limitations of the Biden administration.”
Salman Bashir, a former Pakistani ambassador to China, told China Daily that he truly hopes “the US will reconsider and unfreeze Afghanistan funds”, especially to enable assistance to the earthquake victims
Salman Bashir, a former Pakistani ambassador to China, told China Daily that he truly hopes “the US will reconsider and unfreeze Afghanistan funds”, especially to enable assistance to the earthquake victims.
“Humanitarian catastrophe warrants a humane and generous response,” he said.
In February, Biden signed an executive order to release $7 billion in Afghan assets frozen in the US, dividing it between funding humanitarian relief in Afghanistan and creating a fund to compensate victims of the Sept 11, 2001, terror attacks.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on June 25, “We are urgently working to address complicated questions about the use of these funds to ensure they benefit the people of Afghanistan and not the Taliban.”
A UN envoy last week stressed the need to engage the Taliban, the de facto authorities in Afghanistan, despite difficulties.
A deepening economic crisis, fueled by decades of conflict, is affecting the people of Afghanistan on many different levels. After the Taliban took control of the country in August, various international donors immediately suspended non-humanitarian funding that constituted around 70 percent of the government’s expenditure.
READ MORE: China urges US to lift asset freeze, sanctions on Afghanistan
Compounding the impact of this dire situation, the country has been hit by one of the worst droughts in recent years, significantly reducing food crops and water supplies in many parts.
Ahmad Siar, a truck driver in Kabul, has been without a contract for many months. He complains about unemployment and the spiking food prices. “Earlier my family could afford to eat a good meal at least once a week, but now we barely manage a good meal once a month,” he said.
The truck driver shared that his mental health has taken a hard hit. “I am always thinking about how to support my family of six children. This is not only about me but all Afghans,” he said.
Between January and June, more than 7,000 most vulnerable families (56,000 individuals) across Afghanistan have been assisted by the International Committee of the Red Cross in Afghanistan through multi-purpose cash grants to meet their basic family needs.
“We also helped around 11,000 drought-affected farmers’ households to resume farming activities,” the ICRC said in a statement. “Many of them were forced to stop farming for some time as they had to flee their homes because of violence.”
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The ICRC has served the people of Afghanistan for more than 40 years and is working across the country together with the Afghan Red Crescent Society.
In addition, the ICRC launched a cash-for-work project in Gulbahar, providing short-term employment and income-generating opportunities for the most vulnerable people.
Haji Mirza, a shopkeeper in Taimani area's central market in Kabul, is worried about how his business will sustain in the face of acute economic crisis in the country. (PARWIZ AHMAD FAIZI / ICRC)
Ahmad Siar, a truck driver based in Kabul, is holding on to hope despite surviving on bare minimums. (PARWIZ AHMAD FAIZI / ICRC)