NEW YORK (AFP) – Afghanistan’s economy risks falling into a “death spiral” without urgent aid, with some Afghans already forced to sell their children and body parts to survive, UN chief Antonio Guterres says.
The United Nations has reached less than 13 percent of its $4.4 billon fundraising goal for Afghanistan this year, the secretary-general told a virtual conference of donors co-hosted by the UN, Britain, Germany and Qatar.
“Wealthy, powerful countries cannot ignore the consequences of their decisions on the most vulnerable,” he said, after Western nations withdrew from Afghanistan last year and allowed the Taliban back to power.
Guterres lambasted actions by the Taliban including barring girls from secondary education.
“There is simply no justification for such discrimination,” he said, calling on the them to deliver “an inclusive and representative government.”
But foreign donors must not abandon the Afghan people, Guterres warned, stressing that some 95 percent of Afghans do not have enough to eat and nine million are at risk from famine.
“Without immediate action, we face a starvation and malnutrition crisis in Afghanistan. People are already selling their children and their body parts, in order to feed their families,” he said.
“The first step in any meaningful humanitarian response must be to halt the death spiral of the Afghan economy.”
Afghanistan has been in turmoil since the Taliban, who had previously ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, took power again on August 15 last year and subsequently announced the formation of a caretaker government.
The group’s resurgence came amid hasty and chaotic departure of American forces from the country.
The United States and its allies then largely suspended their financial assistance to Afghanistan, adding fuel to a refugee crisis that has dramatically affected Afghanistan’s neighbors.
The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has frozen nearly $9.5 billion in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank since the withdrawal of its occupation forces.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have also suspended activities in Afghanistan, withholding aid as well as $340 million in new reserves issued by the IMF.