The government will send humanitarian aid to Afghanistan reeling after the Taliban takeover at the end of August, 2021.
The government will send food grains, clothes and medicines to the Afghans on behalf of the Nepali people, according to a Foreign Ministry source.
A chartered flight of Himalaya Airlines will leave with the aid Sunday morning and Foreign Minister Nraayan Khadka will address a press conference at the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) before the plane takes off.
Afghanistan is suffering acute humanitarian crisis with the Taliban government failing in service delivery owing to financial crisis and people struggling to put food on the table.
When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August amid a chaotic US and NATO troop withdrawal, the international community pulled all funding and froze billions of dollars of Afghanistan’s assets abroad.
The country’s long-troubled economy has been in a tailspin since the Taliban takeover. Nearly 80% of Afghanistan’s previous government’s budget came from the international community. That money, now cut off, financed hospitals, schools, factories and government ministries.
Desperation for such basic necessities has been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as health care shortages, drought and malnutrition.
The United Nations has sounded the alarm over a hunger crisis, with 22% of Afghanistan’s 38 million people near famine and another 36% facing acute food insecurity.
America recently announced $308 million in additional humanitarian assistance to be distributed through independent humanitarian organizations and used to provide shelter, health care, winterization assistance, emergency food aid, water, sanitation and hygiene services.
Other countries are also providing humanitarian aid but the Taliban government's demands for easing sanctions and release of Afghanistan’s assets abroad have yet to be met.
