KARACHI — The recent earthquakes in Afghanistan’s northwestern area have exacerbated the dire food situation for around a third of the country’s population.
Over 15 million people are facing acute food insecurity, with 2.8 million at emergency levels (one step away from famine), according to data provided by the World Food Programme (WPF) on World Food Day.
“We remind the world that in Afghanistan, 15 million people do not know where their next meal comes from,” the global body said in a statement on X on Monday.
That’s one-third of the total population, it said.
Nearly 29 million people, or two-thirds of the Afghan population, needed humanitarian relief and protection in 2023, even before huge, devastating earthquakes rattled the north-western Herat region, which borders neighbouring Iran.
From 24.4 million in 2022 and 18.4 million in 2021, this is a significant increase.
Over the past two years since the Taliban took power again, Afghanistan’s economy has struggled greatly.
Since the Taliban regained control in August 2021, the United States has blocked access to roughly $7 billion in Afghan foreign reserves.
This humanitarian catastrophe has been compounded by the earthquake(s) in Herat. The WFP stressed the critical need for aid in Afghanistan.
The flow of humanitarian aid has not slowed.
Humanitarian aid keeps coming in as the country struggles to recover from the earthquake.
According to state-run Bakhtar News, a Chinese jet delivering humanitarian aid worth 30 million yuan (about $4.1 million) for earthquake victims landed in Kabul on Monday.
The official death toll in Afghanistan has been increased to almost a thousand.
In contrast, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Afghanistan reported 1,384 fatalities and 853 injuries. More than 2,500 homes have been totally wiped out.
About 3,067 homes were damaged by the earthquakes, with 2,499 entirely demolished.
Over 43,000 people have been displaced due to the catastrophic earthquakes, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
According to the United Nations Population Fund in Afghanistan, on X, “318,000 people need humanitarian assistance following the Herat earthquake, of which 76,000+ are women and girls of reproductive age, and 7,400+ are currently pregnant.”
Earthquakes are common in Afghanistan, especially in the Hindukush Mountains, which are located close to where the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates collide.
