International Rescue warns of the humanitarian conditions of displaced Afghans

Islamabad (agencies)

The International Rescue Committee has warned that more than half a million Afghans have been deported from Pakistan in recent months, and face a bleak future upon their return to their country.
The committee added that Afghanistan suffers from “extremely high humanitarian needs and food insecurity.” The New York-based committee said in a press statement yesterday that “Afghanistan is currently hosting more than six million internally displaced people, which places enormous pressure on a country that faces a fragile economy and limited health care infrastructure.”
It is noteworthy that in October 2023, the Pakistani government set a one-month deadline for 1.7 million Afghan refugees, who do not hold residence permits, to leave Pakistan voluntarily. Since then, about half a million Afghans have left Pakistan, according to the United Nations.
Earlier, the World Food Program announced that it was forced to reduce life-saving aid to at least four million people in Afghanistan due to a lack of funding.
The program called for urgent funding for its operations in the country, where hunger is worsening and families are suffering one crisis after another.
The UN agency said in a warning statement that catastrophic hunger could spread widely across Afghanistan, and stressed that if humanitarian support does not continue, hundreds of thousands of people will need help to survive.
Afghanistan is more at risk of famine than it has been in a quarter of a century, with about half of families adopting crisis coping methods in order to survive.
For millions in Afghanistan, food aid provided by the World Food Program is now a “last lifeline.”