Extreme cold causes more than 150 death in Afghanistan

With temperatures dropping to as low as minus 28 degrees Celsius (minus 18 Fahrenheit) in early January, the nation is experiencing one of its worst winters ever, significantly below the national average of between 0 and 5 degrees Celsius for this time of year.

Since the Taliban forbade female NGO employees, there has been less humanitarian aid given in the nation, which has worsened the impact.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) stated on Twitter Sunday it was distributing relief like as blankets, heating and shelter to around 565,700 individuals.

“But much more is needed amid one of the coldest spells in years,” it added.

According to Shafiullah Rahimi, a spokesman for the Taliban’s Ministry of Disaster Management, around 70,000 animals have also frozen to death throughout the nation.

In August 2021, a radical Islamist organisation seized power, and since then, Afghanistan has been in a humanitarian and economic disaster.

It has been severely damaged by natural calamities and is now experiencing drought-like conditions for the third year running.

According to a recent UNOCHA report, an estimated 28.3 million people, or about two thirds of Afghanistan‘s population, require immediate humanitarian aid to survive.

Since the Taliban ordered all national and international non-governmental organizations to stop allowing their female employees to work, at least a dozen significant foreign humanitarian organizations have suspended their operations in Afghanistan.

Failure to comply could result in license revocation.

Last week, some of the UN’s most senior female officials took a four-day trip to Afghanistan and met with Taliban leaders in Kabul, asking them to lift the ban and “put the good of the country first.”

The new practices, according to Amina Mohammed, the UN’s deputy secretary-general, violate the fundamental human rights of women.

“… Afghanistan is isolating itself, in the midst of a terrible humanitarian crisis and one of the most vulnerable nations on earth to climate change,” Mohammed said in a statement. “We must do everything we can to bridge this gap.”

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