ANI
24 Jun 2022, 12:27 GMT+10
New York [US], June 24 (ANI): The devastating earthquake this week is just one of several emergencies facing Afghanistan, and continued dialogue with the Taliban remains the only way to address ongoing challenges in the country, the top UN official said on Thursday.
Ramiz Alakbarov, Acting Special Representative at the UN's Mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA, provided an update on the earthquake, citing figures which revealed nearly 800 confirmed deaths and more than 1,400 injured.
He said despite difficulties, "we firmly continue to believe that a strategy of continued engagement and dialogue remains to be the only way forward for the sake of the Afghan people, as well as for the sake of regional and international security." Alakbarov reported that the human rights situation in Afghanistan remains precarious.
Despite the adoption of a general amnesty, and repeated assurances by Taliban leaders that it is being respected, UNAMA continues to receive credible allegations of killings, ill-treatment and other violations targeting individuals associated with the former government.
Credible allegations of violations against persons accused of affiliation with the National Resistance Front and the ISIL-KP terrorist organisation have also been reported.
"The de facto authorities have increasingly restricted the exercise of basic human rights, such as freedom of peaceful assembly, freedom of opinion and expression, quelling dissent and restricting civic space in the country," he said.
The UN official noted that restrictions particularly target women and girls, such as the ban on secondary schooling for girls, and the decree ordering women to wear face coverings.
"The costs to the economy of these policies is immense," he said. "The psychosocial costs of being denied education, for example, are incalculable, and women are collectively being written out of society in a way that is unique in the world."The economic crisis is perhaps the single most important issue in Afghanistan, and a potential driver of conflict and misery. It is estimated the economy contracted by up to 40 per cent since August.
"If the economy is not able to recover and grow meaningfully and sustainably, then the Afghan people will face repeated humanitarian crises; potentially spurring mass migration and making conditions ripe for radicalization and renewed armed conflict," he warned.
Afghanistan also remains highly vulnerable to future climate and geopolitical shocks. Drought, floods, disease outbreaks affecting both people and livestock, as well as natural disasters like the earthquake, are further deepening vulnerabilities.
Alakbarov said the need to prioritize rural areas, with focus on agricultural and food systems to prevent hunger. This will also help to reduce child labour, improve health outcomes, and create an environment that will enable social development and change.
"It will also pave the way for substitution agriculture to replace the poppy cultivation, allowing us to capitalize on the de facto authority's recent ban on poppy and narcotic cultivation," he said.
"While doing so we need to continue to provide adequate attention to clearance of widely unexploded ordnance of war. This bottom-up approach to economic recovery is shared by the de facto authorities and would help the most vulnerable."Addressing humanitarian response, Alakbarov highlighted how aid partners have reached some 20 million Afghans between January and April this year alone, including nearly 250,000 returnees and some 95,000 people affected by floods and weather-related events.
However, the humanitarian crisis persists, and sustained support will be needed through next year. More than 190 aid organizations are operating in Afghanistan, where nearly half the population, 19 million people, are facing food insecurity. (ANI)
Get a daily dose of Northern Ireland News news through our daily email, its complimentary and keeps you fully up to date with world and business news as well.
Publish news of your business, community or sports group, personnel appointments, major event and more by submitting a news release to Northern Ireland News.
More InformationLONDON, UK: In the latest in a series of related issues facing British banks, on November 24, thousands of HSBC ...
By Shailesh YadavDubai (UAE), November 30 (ANI): Ahead of COP28 in the UAE, Minister of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change, ...
New Delhi [India], November 30 (ANI): The Central government, on Wednesday, listed 18 Bills to be taken up for consideration ...
To understand how bodies work, medical researchers and scientists have created mini models of organs, called organoids. This field of ...
OpenAI's artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT was unleashed onto an unsuspecting public exactly one year ago.It quickly became the fastest-growing ...
(Photo credit: Stephen R. Sylvanie-USA TODAY Sports) Vegas Golden Knights defenseman Shea Theodore is recovering from surgery for an upper-body ...
COLUMBUS, Ohio: To stop the spread of bird flu, more than 1.3 million chickens will be killed on Ohio's Union ...
In a devastating turn of events, Israel's war on Gaza, sparked by Hamas's unprecedented attacks on October 7, has resulted ...
BATON ROUGE, Louisiana: In a Louisiana election where more than 43,000 people cast their ballots, a candidate for parish sheriff ...
LIVINGSTON, Kentucky: This week, railroad operator CSX said a train derailment involving 16 cars, two of which spilled molten sulfur ...
Fifty-seven journalists have been killed as of Saturday as a result of Israel's war on Gaza, which has extended to ...
TEL AVIV, Israel - Following Taoiseach Leo Varadkar's statement on Emily Hand's release, Israel's foreign minister says he summoned the ...