KABUL (SW) – Amrullah Saleh, the former first vice president and a resistance force leader in Panjshir, has said that the Taliban have cut off access to humanitarian services in the province.
In a social media post, he said this move by the Taliban amount to war crimes under international law.
“While thousands of families have taken refuge in Panjshir, the Taliban do not allow doctors, medicine and food to enter the province,” Amrullah Saleh wrote in a Facebook post. He said telephone lines in Panjshir have been completely cut off and electricity cut off for three days by the Taliban.
Saleh added that the Taliban also prevented an emergency hospital in Afghanistan, which has been operating in the country for nearly 24 years, from providing services to the people of Panjshir. “We have never cut off or prevented the Taliban from gaining access to this hospital,” he said. “They had access to emergency healthcare in Kunduz and Helmand.”
The former vice president in the previous government also wrote that the Taliban in some parts of the country segregated passengers and in several cases used the youth as landmines’ sweepers.
He called on the United Nations and the international community to condemn the Taliban. “Be with us,” the Panjshir Resistance Front leader stressed. “Resistance will not and will not give up. It is only willing to negotiate for its own legitimate political demands.”
In a new audio message, the Taliban’s top negotiator, Amir Khan Mottaki urged Panjshir resident to either convince or reject those ‘still insisting upon war’ from this ‘small territory’.
According to him, talks have been going on for some time with the people of Panjshir for a peaceful solution to the problem, but no agreement has been reached.
According to various pro-Taliban social media accounts, fighters of the group have besieged Panjshir from four directions and captured the southern Shotul district of the province situated at a distance of 125 km from capital Kabul.
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