For 20 years of the war in Afghanistan, according to the Costs of War project of the American Watson Institute, about 176 thousand people died, of which 46 thousand were civilians. But those numbers don't look that big when you look at the World Health Organization's projections that about a million children in Afghanistan could starve to death this winter.. Another 2.2 million will be malnourished unless urgent action is taken, writes The Guardian.
The organizations have been warning of the threat of a humanitarian catastrophe in the country for several months.. Now this disaster has come.
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If the international community, especially the US and UK, whose troops left the country in August, want to prevent or mitigate this catastrophe, they must act now..
Since the Taliban came to power in Kabul, urgent help has been provided by the people of the country, but it is not enough.. Need a separate plan for Afghanistan.
Several types of crisis are unfolding in Afghanistan. War and its aftermath have left 3.5 million people displaced from their homes. They are especially vulnerable.
Foreign aid, which accounted for 75% of all government spending in the country, has ended. Teachers, healthcare professionals, and government officials are not paid for months. While the number of coronavirus cases is on the rise, the drought has led to a decrease in the harvest.
The banking system is collapsing, cash and savings are hard to come by, prices are rising. Annual per capita income is expected to decline next year, which means lower wages. Meanwhile, the US Treasury and the IMF froze $ 9.5 billion in Afghan assets.
According to the Costs of War project, the US has spent $ 2.3 trillion in Afghanistan since 2001. However, direct and indirect benefits, such as health care, girls' training, and women's integration into the workforce, are largely lost due to Taliban policies and a lack of ongoing Western support..
Crisis in Afghanistan could be critical for the EU. Analysts suggest Europe could face huge new refugee crisis next spring.
Last week, 15 EU countries agreed to host 40,000 Afghans, but this is a drop in the bucket.
The main reasons for the reluctance of Western governments to interfere in the country's affairs are the fear of the confirmation of the Taliban rule and the abuse of financial aid..
But, given the crisis, it is necessary to find ways to bypass this political checkpoint.. Proposed measures to ease UN sanctions, aid, transfer money through private banks and unfreeze individual assets will have to be unblocked. A long-term strategy for international assistance should be formulated.
Disaster evacuation remains a major focus in the UK. Concerns over the inability of the British Foreign Office to adequately respond to electronic requests from Afghans for assistance have intensified.
By invading Afghanistan, the United Kingdom and the United States began a battle they could not end. Leaving the country in panic, they sparked another crisis. If the West wants to avoid another catastrophe, it will have to provide assistance now to the Afghan population suffering from hunger, the newspaper concludes..
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The Taliban do not believe in the separation of powers and the need for independent institutions.
Why Winners Should Share Power and Follow Someone's Rules? But the long-term stability of Afghanistan is ensured not only and not so much by the apparatus of violence, which the Taliban somehow cope with, but by the opportunity to feed the large population, ensure the functioning of the basic infrastructure, prevent social collapse and, as a result, the emergence of uncontrolled alternatives similar to the Islamic State. Are the Taliban able to withstand all these challenges Read in Sergey Danilov's article "