“Children wake up from the cold and cry all night until morning. They are all sick…”
More than 160 people have died due to the cold in Afghanistan this month, in the worst winter in more than a decade, authorities said today.
“162 people have died due to the low temperatures since January 10 until now,” said Safiullah Rahimi, a spokesman for the Disaster Management Ministry. About 84 of those deaths were recorded last week.
The coldest winter in 15 years, with temperatures dropping to minus 34 degrees Celsius, is hitting Afghanistan as the country experiences a severe economic crisis and residents are unable to buy fuel to heat their homes.
In a snow-covered field in the western part of the Afghan capital, children search among garbage for plastic to burn to help their families, who cannot buy wood or charcoal.
A little further on, 30-year-old shopkeeper Ashur Ali lives with his family in a concrete basement, where his five children are shivering from the cold.
“This year, the winter is extremely harsh and we couldn’t buy charcoal for ourselves,” he said, adding that the little money he makes from his shop is no longer enough to buy fuel.
“Children wake up from the cold and cry all night until morning. They are all sick. So far, we haven’t received any help and we don’t have enough bread to eat most of the time.”
Many humanitarian organizations have partially suspended their activities in recent weeks due to a decision by the Taliban administration to ban women from working in aid organizations.
During a visit to Kabul this week, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths said the agency was seeking exceptions to the ban on women working in aid organizations, imposed at one of its most difficult times. for many Afghans.
“The Afghan winter … as everyone knows in Afghanistan, it’s a huge burden for so many families in the country, in so many years of humanitarian crisis … we’re seeing some of the impact in terms of loss of life,” Griffiths told Reuters.
RES-EMP
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