The UN's World Food Programme is being forced to cut rations for millions of hungry and vulnerable Afghans because international donors have failed to stump up promised cash, officials say.
Just seven months after Western nations pledged billions of dollars in aid to help rebuild Afghanistan, money is already running out for the most basic requirement -- feeding people who continue to live on the borderline of survival.
"The level of resources we are going to get will not be enough," said Guy Gauvreau, the WFP's representative for northern Afghanistan. "We're extremely worried about it. It's understandable -- there's a drought in southern Africa -- but we cannot forget Afghanistan."
Some 6 million Afghans still need food aid over the next year, according to UN figures. The WFP has appealed for US$285 million this year but is still short of more than US$90 million -- or 200,000 tonnes of food -- and the lack of cash is beginning to hurt.
Afghanistan is only slowly getting back on its feet after 23 years of war and the worst drought in living memory. The south remains bone dry for a fourth year, and while there has been decent rainfall in the north, many people are still struggling.
Shortages of seeds or oxen combined with locust infestations and a lack of security in many areas all limited the harvest, which Gauvreau says was "good, but not enough to feed people."
Afghanistan already has one of the highest levels of infant and maternal mortality in the world and life expectancy is among the lowest. The drought has brought people to a unprecedented levels of destitution, aid workers say.
"People have sold livestock, mortgaged their land, some have gone into debt, even sold the beams of their houses," said Andrew Pinney of Irish aid agency GOAL. He says some parents in the north have even been forced to sell their daughters as child brides, girls as young as eight fetching between US$150 and US$800.
"The practice seems to have stopped in the last six months as food aid has produced some sort of buffer," Pinney said, adding continued support was essential to help communities recover.
But support is running out. Only a fraction of the US$4.5 billion pledged to Afghanistan in January has so far come through.
Donors have cited security concerns and Afghanistan's still limited capacity to absorb aid, but critics blame bureaucracy and many Afghans feel the outside world has simply failed to live up to its promises.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
RSS