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UN relief chief stresses need to stay and deliver for all Afghans
UN Humanitarian Coordinator Martin Griffiths, who briefed ambassadors, reported on the ongoing hardships and uncertainty facing Afghans, nearly half of whom – 24 million people – require aid relief to survive.
“Afghanistan’s crisis is a humanitarian crisis, but it’s not only that. It’s an economic crisis. It’s a climate crisis. It’s a hunger crisis. It’s a financial crisis. But it’s not a hopeless crisis,” he said.
Although conflict, poverty, climate shocks and food insecurity have long been a “sad reality” for Afghanistan, Griffiths outlined why the current situation is so critical.
Firstly, large-scale development assistance has been halted for a year in a country that was already facing severe levels of food insecurity and malnutrition, which have only deteriorated.
Humanitarians are also confronting an “exceptionally challenging” operating environment, he added, as engaging with the authorities is “labour intensive”.
Furthermore, there is no confidence in the domestic banking sector which has sparked a liquidity crisis, that has affected aid delivery, he said.
A Humanitarian Exchange Facility intended to partially alleviate the liquidity crisis, is still being negotiated with Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan leaders.
Meanwhile women and girls “have been pushed to the sidelines”, Griffiths added.
“In the 21st century, we should not need to explain why girls’ education and women’s empowerment are important to them, to their communities, to their countries, and indeed to all of us,” he said.
He stressed that preserving basic service delivery alongside humanitarian assistance “remains the only way to prevent a catastrophe even greater than what we have seen these many months.”
He reported that poverty is still deepening, the population continues to grow, and the authorities have no budget to invest in their own future, making it clear that “some development support needs to be restarted”.
A $4.4 billion Humanitarian Response Plan for Afghanistan currently has a gap of $3.14 billion, he said.
With winter approaching, more than $600 million is urgently needed to support priority preparedness activities, such as upgrades and repairs to shelters, as well as provision of warm clothes and blankets.
Additionally, $154 million is needed to pre-position supplies, including food and livelihood assistance, before the winter weather cuts off access to some areas of the country.
“The people of Afghanistan are still there. They have shown incredible resilience over the decades and in this last year. Our task is to help them to prosper, to flourish and to be safe,” said Griffiths, who also called for action by the IEA authorities.
“Bureaucratic interferences and procedures slow down humanitarian assistance when it is needed most. Female humanitarian aid workers – both national and international – must be allowed to work unhindered and securely. And girls must be allowed to continue their education.”
Markus Potzel, the Secretary-General’s Acting Special Representative for Afghanistan, reported on the UN’s ongoing engagement with the IEA, as well as efforts towards promoting inclusive governance, rights and freedoms.
He said the IEA has been “ambiguous” as to the extent to which they want to engage, predicated on being in accordance with their interpretation of Sharia law.
Potzel underlined the vital need to move “beyond an exchange of hardened positions” towards a sustained dialogue between the IEA, other Afghan stakeholders, the wider region and the international community.
“Such dialogue must place the interests of all Afghans at its centre,” he advised.
“The future stability of Afghanistan rests on meeting the needs of the Afghan people, preserving their rights, and reflecting the country’s diversity in all governance structures.”
The Embassy of Japan in Afghanistan announced on Friday that the country has allocated $19.5 million in humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan.
In a statement, the Japanese Embassy said it hopes the aid will help bring positive change to the lives of vulnerable Afghans.
According to the statement, the assistance will cover the basic humanitarian needs of vulnerable communities in Afghanistan.
The embassy added that the aid will be delivered through United Nations agencies, international organizations, and Japanese non-governmental organizations operating in Afghanistan.
Japan’s total assistance to Afghanistan since August 2021 has reached more than $549 million.
Security forces at the Islam Qala border in Herat province prevented hundreds of young Afghans from illegally entering Iran.
Officials from the 207 Al-Farooq Army Corps said that around 530 people attempted over the past two days to illegally enter Iranian territory through areas of Kohsan district in Herat, but border forces detained them and transferred them back to their original areas.
Meanwhile, officials in the local administration of Herat said that due to severe cold along the illegal migration route to Iran, three Afghan migrants have lost their lives in the Kohsan district of the province, and a shepherd has also died there for the same reason.
Mohammad Yousuf Saeedi, spokesperson for the Herat governor’s office, said that some statistics and images shared on social media regarding the incident are not reliable.
According to him, further investigations are underway to determine whether any individuals have died on the other side of the border.
President Donald Trump suspended the green card lottery program on Thursday that allowed the suspect in the Brown University and MIT shootings to come to the United States.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a post on the social platform X that, at Trump’s direction, she is ordering the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to pause the program, the Associated Press reported.
“This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” she said of the suspect, Portuguese national Claudio Neves Valente.
Neves Valente, 48, is suspected in the shootings at Brown University that killed two students and wounded nine others, and the killing of an MIT professor. He was found dead Thursday evening from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said.
Neves Valente had studied at Brown on a student visa beginning in 2000, according to an affidavit from a Providence police detective. In 2017, he was issued a diversity immigrant visa and months later obtained legal permanent residence status, according to the affidavit. It was not immediately clear where he was between taking a leave of absence from the school in 2001 and getting the visa in 2017.
The diversity visa program makes up to 50,000 green cards available each year by lottery to people from countries that are little represented in the U.S., many of them in Africa. The lottery was created by Congress, and the move is almost certain to invite legal challenges.
Nearly 20 million people applied for the 2025 visa lottery, with more than 131,000 selected when including spouses with the winners. After winning, they must undergo vetting to win admission to the United States. Portuguese citizens won only 38 slots.
Lottery winners are invited to apply for a green card. They are interviewed at consulates and subject to the same requirements and vetting as other green-card applicants.
Trump has long opposed the diversity visa lottery. Noem’s announcement is the latest example of using tragedy to advance immigration policy goals. After an Afghan man was identified as the gunman in a fatal attack on National Guard members in November, Trump’s administration imposed sweeping rules against immigration from Afghanistan and other counties.
While pursuing mass deportation, Trump has sought to limit or eliminate avenues to legal immigration. He has not been deterred if they are enshrined in law, like the diversity visa lottery, or the Constitution, as with a right to citizenship for anyone born on U.S. soil. The Supreme Court recently agreed to hear his challenge to birthright citizenship.
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