The Taliban on Saturday urged the United States to unfreeze Afghanistan’s foreign funds and lift financial sanctions to help the war-ravaged country deal with its deadliest earthquake yet which killed more than 1000 people.
Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi on Saturday, while speaking to reporters in Kabul, said, “In these testing times, we call on the United States to release Afghanistan’s frozen assets and lift sanctions on Afghan banks so that aid agencies can easily deliver assistance to Afghanistan.”
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden in February had signed an executive order to free up half the $7 billion in frozen Afghan central bank assets on US soil, splitting the money between humanitarian aid for Afghanistan and to possibly satisfy terrorism-related lawsuits against the Taliban, Voice of America reported.
The United Nations said humanitarian organizations, in coordination with Taliban authorities, are continuing to provide aid to families in Paktika and Khost, the two southeastern Afghan provinces hardest hit by Wednesday’s 5.9 magnitude earthquake.
“There are, however, unconfirmed reports that between 700 and 800 families are living in the open across three of the six worst-affected districts,” a UN statement on Saturday said.
“Families living in non-damaged and partially damaged buildings have also reportedly resorted to living out in the open out of fear that there may be further tremors,” the statement added.
DEADLY EARTHQUAKE
According to Taliban officials, the earthquake killed 1,150 people, injured about 1,600 and destroyed nearly 3,000 homes, with hundreds more partially damaged. According to UNICEF, at least 121 children were among those killed and the toll is likely to increase.
The destruction hit some of the poorest and most remote mountainous Afghan areas near the Pakistan border which lacked the infrastructure to withstand calamities of this scale.
The Afghan authorities have ended the search for survivors and said that the supplies of medicine and other critical aid were inadequate.
INDIA SENDS AID
Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Arindam Bagchi on Friday said that India had sent a second consignment of relief assistance to Kabul to support the people of Afghanistan. The relief assistance consists of essential items including family ridge tents, sleeping bags, blankets.
Second consignment of India’s earthquake relief assistance for the people of Afghanistan reaches Kabul. pic.twitter.com/S7nDhi0nX4
– Arindam Bagchi (@MEAIndia) June 24, 2022
New Delhi also decided to deploy Indian officials at the Indian mission in Kabul on Thursday to ramp up humanitarian efforts.
“In order to closely monitor and coordinate the efforts of various stakeholders for the effective delivery of humanitarian assistance and in continuation of our engagement with the Afghan people, an Indian technical team has reached Kabul today and has been deployed in our Embassy there,” said a statement issued by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Thursday.