Kabul: At least 300 displaced families received food assistance in Afghanistan’s Ghazni amid the ongoing food crisis under the Taliban regime in Islamic Emirate.
The country’s ministry of disaster management and humanitarian affairs on Thursday confirmed that the assistance packages were distributed on Wednesday.
“Assistance packages were distributed on Wednesday to 300 families which displaced by drought from different Ghazni districts to provincial capital Ghazni city,” Xinhua news agency reported citing the ministry statement.
These packages included 50 kg of rice, 7 kg sugar, 7 kg beans, 5 litters of cooking oil as well as 1 kg tea, according to the statement cited by the news agency Xinhua.
Afghanistan is on the brink of mass starvation after nearly four months since the Taliban seized power and now aid groups said that it has threatened to kill a million children this winter, The New York Times reported.
Afghanistan, which has suffered from malnutrition for decades is witnessing a worsening hunger crisis in recent months.
This winter, an estimated 22.8 million people — more than half the population — are expected to face potentially life-threatening levels of food insecurity, according to an analysis by the United Nations World Food Program and Food and Agriculture Organization. Of those, 8.7 million people are nearing famine — the worst stage of a food crisis, said The New York Times.
Meanwhile, the International Crisis Group (ICG) in a newly published report said that if the international community does not scale up economic support, more Afghans may die of hunger and starvation in the current crisis than from the fighting in the past 20 years.
“Hunger and destitution following the Taliban’s takeover of the country seem poised to kill more Afghans than all the bombs and bullets of the past two decades,” the report read.
As per the ICG report, the Taliban’s inability to run a modern economy and the decision of foreign donors to cut off all but emergency aid are the main reasons behind the economic and humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.