{"id":6763,"date":"2021-10-23T10:43:02","date_gmt":"2021-10-23T10:43:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/?p=6763"},"modified":"2021-10-23T10:43:02","modified_gmt":"2021-10-23T10:43:02","slug":"icrc-warns-of-looming-humanitarian-crisis-in-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/2021\/10\/icrc-warns-of-looming-humanitarian-crisis-in-afghanistan\/","title":{"rendered":"ICRC warns of looming humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

MONITORING (SW) – The Red Cross on Friday urged the international community to engage with Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers, saying that aid groups on their own would be unable to stave off a humanitarian crisis.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Afghanistan has been plunged into crisis by the abrupt end of billions of dollars in foreign assistance following the collapse of the Western-backed government and return to power by the Taliban in August.<\/p>\n

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has since increased its efforts in the country while other organisations were also stepping up, Director General Robert Mardini said.<\/p>\n

But he told Reuters that support from the international community, who had so far taken a cautious approach in engaging with the Taliban, was critical to providing basic services.<\/p>\n

“Humanitarian organisations joining forces can only do so much. They can come up with temporary solutions.”<\/p>\n

The United Nations on Thursday\u00a0announced it had set up a fund to provide cash directly to Afghans, which Mardini said would solve the problem for three months.<\/p>\n

“Afghanistan is a compounded crisis that is deteriorating by the day,” he said, citing decades of conflict compounded by the effects of climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

Mardini said 30% of Afghanistan’s 39 million population were facing severe malnutrition and that 18 million people in the country need humanitarian assistance or protection.<\/p>\n

The Taliban expelled many foreign aid groups when it was last in power from 1996-2001 but this time has said it welcomes foreign donors and will protect the rights of their staff.<\/p>\n

But the hardline Islamists, facing criticism it has failed to protect rights, including access to education for girls, have also said aid should not be tied to conditions.<\/p>\n

“No humanitarian organisation can compensate or replace the economy of a country,” Mardini said.<\/p>\n

ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MONITORING (SW) – The Red Cross on Friday urged the international community to engage with Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers, saying that aid groups on their own would be unable to stave off a humanitarian crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6764,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,18,200,225,5,8,4,6,7],"tags":[12,480,624,666],"class_list":["post-6763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security_","category-peace","category-democracy-human-rights","category-corruption","category-politics_","category-governance","category-news_","category-afghanistan","category-headline","tag-afghanistan","tag-aid","tag-icrc","tag-humanitarian"],"views":822,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}