Kathmandu, Jan 16 : Nepal has sent humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan reeling after the Taliban takeover at the end of August, 2021.
The government has sent around 14 tons of materials including clothes, medicines and other necessary goods on a chartered flight of Himalaya Airlines Sunday morning.
Addresing a press conference at the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) before the plane took off Foreign Minister Nraayan Khadka said Nepal has assisted due to humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.
“We are sending materials on a special flight today feeling that Nepal should provide humanitarian assistance at a time when there is no international help (sic|) for the Afghan people,” Khadka said. “We are providing such assistance with help from the private sector in a way that the government does not have to bear any expenses for the first time in history.”
Reminding that Nepal has accepted assistance from different countries at the time of natural disasters he pointed that Nepal can also help when needed. “We have to send a message that we can also help. We believe that Nepal’s image and prestige will be boosted in the international community due to this efoort.”
He revealed that medicines, clothes and other materials have been sent to Afghanistan in accordance to the list of necessary items provided by the United Nations. “We have sent clothes because it is very cold in the winter there,” he reasoned.
Afghanistan is suffering acute humanitarian crisis with the Taliban government failing in service delivery owing to financial crisis and people struggling to put food on the table.
When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August amid a chaotic US and NATO troop withdrawal, the international community pulled all funding and froze billions of dollars of Afghanistan’s assets abroad.
The country’s long-troubled economy has been in a tailspin since the Taliban takeover. Nearly 80% of Afghanistan’s previous government’s budget came from the international community. That money, now cut off, financed hospitals, schools, factories and government ministries.
Desperation for such basic necessities has been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as health care shortages, drought and malnutrition.
The United Nations has sounded the alarm over a hunger crisis, with 22% of Afghanistan’s 38 million people near famine and another 36% facing acute food insecurity.
America recently announced $308 million in additional humanitarian assistance to be distributed through independent humanitarian organizations and used to provide shelter, health care, winterization assistance, emergency food aid, water, sanitation and hygiene services.
Other countries are also providing humanitarian aid but the Taliban government’s demands for easing sanctions and release of Afghanistan’s assets abroad have yet to be met.
