File photo of a ruined and deserted village in Afghanistan
Kabul/New York/New Delhi: Tens of thousands of people are feared trapped by fighting in Lashkargah in south Afghanistan, latest reports emanating from the strife torn country suggest. There are also reports of attacks on Government officials by the Taliban, which has seemingly continued the assault on them, but at the same time more and more civilians too are bearing the brunt of the attacks.
At least 40 civilians were killed and 118 injured within the last 24 hours in the city of Lashkargah till August 3, as the Taliban continued their ground assault. In Kandahar, at least five civilians were killed and 42 wounded.
In the evening of August 3, the Afghan Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammad Haneef Atmar, during a telephone conversation Indian Minister of External Affairs, S. Jaishankar, had talked about the escalation of violence, widespread human rights violations by the Taliban and foreign terrorist groups operations in Afghanistan, and the need to hold a special session of the UN Security Council on Afghanistan. India currently holds the rotating presidency of the United Nations Security Council and Jaishankar had called the holding of the UN Security Council meeting important for the immediate cessation of human rights abuses and the establishment of lasting peace and stability in Afghanistan and the region.
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Even children are facing, what the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) described as, “horrific violence” in the country. UNICEF said on August 4 that it was outraged by a report that a 12-year-old boy from Shirin Tagab district, in Faryab province, suffered a brutal flogging by a member of an anti-government group. The young boy endured wounds to his back, legs and feet, and was traumatized by the vicious attack. UNICEF, with local partners, is providing urgent help to the child and his family, including psychosocial support, medical care, as well as other immediate needs.
The United Nations Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has said that the Taliban ground offensive and Afghan National Army air strikes were causing the most harm. It claimed that there were growing incidents of indiscriminate shooting and damage to health facilities and civilian homes. All parties must do more to protect civilians or the impact will be catastrophic, according to the UN Mission in Afghanistan.
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in the country said while it was continuing to provide emergency life-saving assistance to families who had been newly displaced because of the violence, nearly 360,000 people had fled their homes this year due to conflict.
The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) has deployed Mobile Health Teams to respond to communities impacted by the conflict and provide quick relief in the form of health and psychosocial support to the most vulnerable.
The UN humanitarian workers there said that there are reports of increased civilian casualties, destruction or damage to civilian houses, as well as to critical infrastructure, including hospitals in Helmand and Kandahar too. Hospitals and health workers were becoming overwhelmed by the number of wounded people, they reported.
“We, along with our humanitarian partners in Afghanistan, are assessing needs and responding in the south, as access allows. On 1 August, more than 2,000 people were reached with food, water, sanitation and cash assistance in Kandahar,” Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, told journalists in New York on August 4, 2021. He called on donors to urgently fund Afghanistan’s Humanitarian Response Plan, which requires $1.3 billion but has only received $485 million to date. “By my calculation, that is less than 50 per cent funded,” he said.
It may be mentioned that while about 5 million people have been displaced in Afghanistan since 2012, nearly 360,000 people have been forcibly displaced by the conflict in the country in little over the last seven months. Attacks on health facilities in the first half of the year have deprived 200,000 people in Afghanistan of access to even basic care.
“We urge the parties to the conflict to protect civilians, aid workers and civilian infrastructure, including schools and hospitals, in compliance with international humanitarian law,” Dujarric said. According to him the UN humanitarians were committed to staying and delivering in Afghanistan and were expected to have reached almost half of the nearly 16 million people targeted for assistance so far in 2021, despite the worsening conditions.
On August 4, 2021, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) strongly condemned the attacks on civilians and expressed its deep concern over the escalation of violence, by the Taliban, that has caused civilian casualties in Afghanistan. The organization’s General Secretariat, in the statement, called for an immediate ceasefire and reiterates its commitment to supporting an Afghan-owned and Afghan-led inclusive peace and reconciliation process towards reaching a political solution.
– global bihari bureau
