The packages consisted of flour, cooking oil, beans, and salt…reports Asian Lite News
More than 7,000 families have received food assistance in two Afghan provinces in recent days, authorities said.
In eastern Parwan province, the United Nations World Food Programme with the cooperation of the Afghan Rural Rehabilitation and Development Ministry distributed food packages to 4,400 destitute families in Jabalusaraj and Surkhi Parsa districts, the Ministry confirmed in a statement on Monday.
The packages consisted of flour, cooking oil, beans, and salt, according to the statement.
Besides, 2,640 displaced, deprived as well as drought-affected and most vulnerable families received food assistance in northern Jawzjan province, Abdul Qayyum Nazari, Head of the province’s Refugees and Repatriations Department, told Xinhua news agency.
“The benefited people were identified by surveys in provincial capital Shiberghan city and 11 suburban districts,” he said.
According to Nazari, more humanitarian assistance would be provided to destitute families in Jawzjan in the coming days or weeks, Xinhua news agency reported.
More than 22 million Afghans out of nearly 35 million of the country’s population are facing acute food shortages and the war-torn country would face humanitarian catastrophe if not assisted, according to aid agencies’ reports.
Meanwhile, the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) has once again warned of an increase in record hunger levels in Afghanistan, saying that 19.7 million people, almost half of the war-torn country’s population, is in acute need of food.
According to an WFP report, the prolonged drought and deep economic crisis will threaten the livelihoods of millions of people across Afghanistan, TOLO News reports.
The report said that humanitarian assistance averted a catastrophe in the harsh winter months, but hunger continues across the country at unprecedented levels.
It predicts that the outlook for June-November 2022 sees a slight improvement in the food security situation, with a reduction in the number of people facing acute food insecurity to 18.9 million people.
Meanwhile, the Taliban-led government’s Ministry of Economy says that is considering a strategic and a food insecurity plan to solve the challenges which children face in the country.
“In the permanent economic strategy of the Ministry of Economy, the rebuilding of Afghanistan’s infrastructure is included,” Aman Nazari, a deputy at the Ministry.
Meanwhile, the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction recently said that the latest assessment of the International Labour Organization shows that in the last three months of 2021, 500,000 people in the country have lost their jobs.