W.earnings Afghanistan faces increasing poverty, with 6 million people at risk of famine, the UN Humanitarian Director-General said yesterday. [Macau time] As the United States argued with Russia and China about who should pay, it urged donors to immediately provide $770 million to restore funds for economic development and help Afghans survive the winter.
Martin Griffiths told the UN Security Council that Afghanistan faces multiple crises, including humanitarian, economic, climate, hunger and financial.
Conflict, poverty, climate shocks and food insecurity have been “a sad reality for a long time” in Afghanistan, but what makes the current situation “very critical” is the large-scale war since the Taliban took over a year ago. development aid has stopped, he said.
More than half of Afghanistan’s population, about 24 million people, need assistance, and nearly 19 million face severe levels of food insecurity, according to Griffiths. And they are ‘worried’ that the numbers will soon deteriorate as winter weather causes already high fuel and food prices to skyrocket.
Despite the challenges, he said UN agencies and their NGO partners had launched an “unprecedented response” over the past year, reaching nearly 23 million people.
But he said $614 million was urgently needed to prepare for winter, including repairing and improving shelters and providing winter clothing and blankets, before the weather cut off access to certain areas. said it needed an additional $154 million to prepare food and other supplies in advance.
But Griffiths stressed that “humanitarian aid will never be able to replace the delivery of system-wide services to 40 million people across the country.”
The Taliban “do not have the budget to invest in their own future,” he said, adding, “It is clear that some development assistance needs to be launched.”
With more than 70% of Afghans living in rural areas, Mr Griffiths said that if agriculture and livestock production were not protected, “the lives and livelihoods of millions would be at risk and the country’s food production capacity would be at risk.” It will be damaged,” he warned.
He said the country’s banking and liquidity crisis and the extreme difficulty of international financial transactions must also be addressed.
“The consequences of inaction, both humanitarian and developmental, are devastating and difficult to reverse,” Griffiths warned.
Russia convened a UN Security Council meeting on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, and Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzia sharply criticized the “disgraceful 20-year campaign” by the US and its NATO allies.
He argued that they did nothing to build Afghanistan’s economy and that their presence only reinforced the country’s status as a “hotbed of terrorism” and drug production and distribution.
Nevenziah also accused the United States and its allies of abandoning Afghans to face “destruction, poverty, terrorism, hunger and other challenges.”
“Instead of admitting their mistakes and helping the devastated country rebuild, they have blocked Afghanistan’s financial resources and disconnected the central bank from SWIFT, the main system of global financial transactions,” he said. rice field.
China’s UN Ambassador Zhang Jun also said the US and its allies are “evading responsibility and abandoning the Afghan people” by cutting off development aid, freezing Afghan assets and imposing “political isolation and blockades”. ” he denounced.
US Ambassador Linda Thomas Greenfield accused the Taliban of imposing a policy of “oppressing and starving the Afghan people instead of protecting them” and raising taxes on much-needed aid.
She described how the Taliban hoped to build ties with the rest of the world when they provided al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri a safe haven in downtown Kabul. He was killed in a US drone attack on July 31st.
Nevertheless, Thomas-Greenfield said the United States was the world’s largest donor to Afghanistan, providing more than $775 million in humanitarian aid to Afghans in the country and the region last year.
As for frozen assets in Afghanistan, President Joe Biden announced in February that $7 billion in the US would be split. Of that, $3.5 billion he will go to the United Nations Trust Fund to provide aid to Afghanistan, and $3.5 billion he will go to the families of American victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. in the United States.
“No country that is serious about containing terrorism in Afghanistan will advocate giving the Taliban immediate and unconditional access to billions of assets belonging to the Afghan people,” Thomas said. Greenfield said.
In response to Russia’s insistence that Afghanistan’s problems were the West’s fault, not the Taliban, Thomas Greenfield replied, “What are you helping but rehashing the past and criticizing others? Is it?” he asked.
She said Russia has donated only $2 million to the UN’s humanitarian appeal to Afghanistan, and that China’s donations are “similarly overwhelmed.”
“If you want to talk about how Afghanistan needs help, that’s fine. .
Russia’s Nebenzia won the floor again, calling the proposal “great”.
“Are we being asked to pay for rebuilding a country whose economy was essentially destroyed by 20 years of US and NATO occupation?” he asked. “You are the one who needs to make amends for your mistakes.
US Ambassador Thomas Greenfield had the last word.
“If the Russian Federation believes Afghanistan had an economy that should have been destroyed, it has been destroyed by the Taliban. MDT/AP
