The harshest winter weather conditions in nearly three decades has devastated Afghanistan's livestock – with over 300,000 animals dying since last December – and the United Nations is providing support by sending some 80 tons of feed to the hardest-hit farmers.
Many Afghan refugees living in neighbouring Iran and Pakistan are reluctant to return to their homeland due to the deteriorating security situation there and difficulty in sustaining their new lives, a senior official with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said today.
As more than 6 million children in Afghanistan prepare to start a new school year in a few weeks, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is working to ensure that both boys and girls in the strife-torn nation have access to quality education in a safe environment.
United Nations agencies are delivering emergency aid to ease the plight of more than 200,000 Afghans suffering under a harsh Central Asian winter that has already claimed hundreds of lives in recent weeks.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has strongly condemned the suicide bombing in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar which killed some 80 people, stressing that no grievance or political purpose can justify such attacks.
A United Nations study of opium production in Afghanistan released today has concluded that this year’s cultivation levels remain shockingly high, and will be broadly similar to or slightly lower than last year’s record harvest of 192,000 hectares.
United Nations officials in Afghanistan have called for an immediate halt to attacks against aid workers trying to assist vulnerable communities with food, medicine and warm clothing amid recent heavy snowfall and a rise in food prices.
