UN launches $550M aid appeal for Afghanistan

By Shadi Khan Saif

KABUL, Afghanistan (AA) - The UN on Saturday launched an appeal for $550 million to aid and support Afghans in need of assistance in the war-ravaged country.

United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator Mark Bowden said 2017 was exceptionally challenging for Afghanistan, which is home to the largest number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and repatriates in the world after Syria.

"The current scale of need in Afghanistan calls upon the humanitarian community to deliver increased levels of assistance to ensure the lives of many Afghans are not endangered, and so that they can live in safety and dignity," Bowden said at the launch.

He was flanked by Abdullah Abdullah, the chief executive of the Afghan government, Anders Sjoberg, Swedish ambassador, and Dejan Panic, program director at Kabul Emergency Hospital, an Italian humanitarian organization providing emergency medical treatment to civilian victims of war.

Abdullah said the international community’s support in 2016 enabled the Kabul government to provide relief and aid to more than 3 million victims of war and natural disasters, 1.5 million malnourished children, over a million other in need of health services, and some 60,000 IDPs.

He blamed the Taliban for dragging the war, and not responding positively to calls for peace.

The launch comes at a time when the country received more than a million of its refugees back from Pakistan in the past one year alone. An overwhelming majority of these Afghans are believed to be facing acute poverty.

The humanitarian community in Afghanistan is bracing for a million more to return to the country in 2017.