HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IN AFGHANISTAN
HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IN AFGHANISTAN
Faced with the rapid evolution of the internal situation in Afghanistan, our humanitarian aid workers are continuing to guarantee humanitarian assistance and respond to the serious needs of the population involved in the escalation of fighting and violence.
According to data released by the United Nations on August 13, nearly 400,000 people have been forced to leave their homes since the beginning of the year, joining 2.9 million internally displaced people already present in the country, while 80% of the nearly 250,000 Afghans forced to flee since the end of May are women and children. All this adds to an already dramatic situation: at the beginning of 2021, the population in need of humanitarian assistance amounted to 18.4 million people, including over 7 million minors, while over 10 million people live in severe food insecurity conditions.¹
INTERSOS’S INTERVENTION
INTERSOS has been operating in Afghanistan since 2001, and despite the difficulties of recent weeks, our projects in the country, concentrated in the provinces of Kandahar and Zabul, are currently operational, guaranteeing support to different primary health centers in the Spin Boldak, Maywand, Shawalikot and Zheray districts, as well as Qalat hospital and Kharwaryan and Shajoy health centers in Zabul province. The intervention within the health facilities is supported by the activity of the mobile clinics engaged in the most remote areas. Particularly significant, in this phase, is the first emergency medical activity guaranteed by the two First Aid Trauma Points supported by INTERSOS in Kandahar.
Our projects focus also on maternal and child health, on malnutrition and the protection of women at risk and survivors of violence. In Afghanistan, 2 out of 5 women give birth without health care and 6 out of 1,000 women die in childbirth. A number 300 times higher than Italy.
¹Data from the OCHA Global Humanitarian Overview
