GENEVA (AFP) – The United Nations said Tuesday it needed $5 billion in aid for Afghanistan in 2022 to avert a humanitarian catastrophe and offer the ravaged country a future after 40 years of suffering.
In its biggest-ever single-country appeal, the UN said $4.4 billion (3.9 billion euros) was needed within Afghanistan, while a further $623 million was required to support the millions of Afghans sheltering beyond its borders.
The UN said 22 million people inside Afghanistan and a further 5.7 million displaced Afghans in five neighboring countries needed vital relief this year.
“A full-blown humanitarian catastrophe looms. My message is urgent: don’t shut the door on the people of Afghanistan,” said UN aid chief Martin Griffiths.
“Help us scale up and stave off wide-spread hunger, disease, malnutrition and ultimately death.”
Since the Taliban movement seized control of Afghanistan in mid-August, the country has plunged into financial chaos, with inflation and unemployment surging.
Washington has frozen billions of dollars of the country’s assets, while aid supplies have been heavily disrupted.
Afghanistan also suffered its worst drought in decades in 2021.
Without the aid package, “there won’t be a future”, Griffiths told reporters in Geneva.
Almost five months after the U.S.-led international coalition hastily abandoned the South Asian country, millions of Afghans are on the brink of starvation, with no food and no money.
UN aid agencies have described the country’s situation as one of the world’s most rapidly growing humanitarian crises. According to the UN humanitarian coordination office, half the population is now battling acute hunger, and over nine million people have been displaced.
The world body had earlier warned that millions of Afghans could run out of food before the onset of harsh winter and around one million children were at the risk of starvation and death.
The interim government of Taliban has repeatedly called for the release of frozen assets, but Washington has rebuffed the calls.