UN agency hopes to reach 11.1mn Afghans with aid

With the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on top of armed conflict and natural disasters in Afghanistan, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that it hopes to reach 11.1 million people in the war-ton country with aid.

The OCHA put the cost of assisting them at $1.1 billion, reports Xinhua news agency.

"Even before the pandemic reached Afghanistan, 9.4 million people needed humanitarian assistance to obtain food, clean water, basic healthcare and other essentials," it said on Thursday.

Economic consequences of the pandemic threaten to push even more people into financial insecurity and, in some cases, acute humanitarian need, it said.

While OCHA said in its Humanitarian Response Plan that 35 million of the 37.6 million people in Afghanistan lack a "humanitarian social net", 14 million of them are in "humanitarian need".

Of the 11.1 million people it hopes to reach, 5.8 million people have needs attributed to COVID-19.

The OCHA said 53 per cent of those targeted for humanitarian aid are children.

So far, only $227 million have been received for the Humanitarian Response Plan, the office said.

 

( With inputs from IANS )