In the near future, the UN Refugee Office (UNHCR) plans to send three planes with humanitarian aid for Afghanistan to Termez, the Office’s press service said in a statement.
The aid will reportedly be distributed to trucks, which will deliver it to Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif through the Hairaton border crossing point. The first such aircraft will arrive in Termez in mid-October.
UNHCR spokesman Babar Balokh, while in Kabul, said the Office is working to establish logistics centers in countries bordering Afghanistan to provide emergency support to hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons.
Earlier the UN decided that the main logistics center of the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) for providing assistance to Afghanistan would be located in Termez. The EU Special Representative for Central Asia Teri Hakala also announced the formation by UN agencies of a large warehouse for humanitarian aid to Afghanistan in the Surkhandarya cargo center.
UNHCR is concerned about the deepening humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.
“It is already getting cold at night, and people who have been left homeless in need of urgent help,” Babar Balokh said. According to him, the number of Afghans in need of support has reached 20 million and continues to increase every day.
“A month has passed since the UN requested $ 606 million for humanitarian operations in Afghanistan, but so far only 35% of this amount has been received,” the statement said. "The funds are needed to prevent a complete collapse of the Afghan economy."
The UN warns that today only 5% of Afghan families are provided with adequate food. More than half of children under five years of age are malnourished and are at risk of severe malnutrition without help.
