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Afghanistan: Humanitarians await guidelines on women’s role in aid operations

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(Last Updated On: January 31, 2023)

A UN-led group of humanitarians are hoping that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) will allow Afghan women to again work with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on the ground following last month’s ban, four senior aid officials told journalists in New York on Monday.

In a statement issued by the UN, the group, representing the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), stressed that the world’s largest humanitarian operation – supporting some 28 million people in Afghanistan – simply cannot function without women staff.

The officials reported on their mission to the country last week, in the wake of the edict prohibiting Afghan women from working with local and international aid agencies, announced on 24 December.

Days later, the IEA authorized women to continue working in healthcare.

A similar exception was made in education, though focused on the primary level as Afghan girls and women have been barred from attending high school and university.

In their meetings with the IEA, the IASC mission expressed opposition to the ban, which they hoped would be rescinded, and advocated for exemptions in all aspects of humanitarian action.

They were told that guidelines are being developed, and were asked to be patient, said Martin Griffiths, UN relief chief and the IASC chair, speaking during a press conference at UN Headquarters.

“I’m somebody who doesn’t like to speculate too much, because it is a matter of speculation. Let’s see if these guidelines do come through. Let’s see if they are beneficial. Let’s see what space there is for the essential and central role of women in our humanitarian operations,” he said.

“Everybody has opinions as to whether it’s going to work or not. Our view is that the message has clearly been delivered: that women are central, essential workers in the humanitarian sector, in addition to having rights, and we need to see them back to work.”

The UN says humanitarians will require $4.6 billion to fund their activities in Afghanistan this year.

Three years of drought-like conditions, economic decline, and the impacts of four decades of conflict, have left roughly two-thirds of the population, 28 million people, dependent on aid, with six million on the brink of starvation.

Women comprise 30 percent of the 55,000 Afghan nationals working for NGOs in the country, according to Janti Soeripto, President and Chief Executive Officer of Save the Children.

“Without women on our teams, we cannot provide humanitarian services to millions of children and women,” she said.

“We won’t be able to identify their needs; communicate to female heads of households, of which there are many in Afghanistan after years and years of conflict, and to do so in a safe and culturally appropriate way.”

The UN stated that furthermore, many women aid workers are themselves the sole breadwinners for their families, which means many more households will go wanting.

“We’ve made it very clear that humanitarian aid must never be conditional, and it cannot discriminate,” said Soeripto. “We were not there to politicize aid. We cannot do this work without women in all aspects of our value chains.”

The loss of these valuable workers also comes as Afghanistan is facing its coldest winter in 15 years, with temperatures falling to nearly -30 degrees Celsius, resulting in numerous deaths.

The IASC mission visited a clinic on the outskirts of the capital, Kabul, run by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and a local partner.

Critical health and nutrition services there are up and running again now that women staff are back on board, said Sofía Sprechmann Sineiro, Secretary General of CARE International.

The clinic’s staff also shared a horrific statistic, as 15 percent of the children who seek help suffer from severe acute malnutrition, the UN stated.

“So, let there be no ambiguity. Tying the hands of NGOs by barring women from giving life-saving support to other women will cost lives,” Sineiro said, speaking from Kabul.

According to the statement, during their meetings with the IEA, the humanitarian chiefs also pushed for the full inclusion of girls and women in public life.

More than one million Afghan girls have lost out on learning due to the order banning them from secondary school, which has added to losses sustained during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The university ban, announced last month, has further crushed their hopes, said Omar Abdi, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director for Programmes.

“We are very concerned about girls’ and women’s development and particularly their mental health. In 2023, if secondary school education remains closed, an estimated 215,000 girls who attended grade six last year will once again be denied the right to learn,” he said.

Despite the bleak outlook, Abdi pointed to a few positive signs.

Since the ban, some 200,000 girls continue to attend secondary schools in 12 provinces, and women secondary school teachers continue to receive their salaries.

“The officials we met in Kabul…reaffirmed that they are not against girls learning in secondary schools, and again promised to re-open once the guidelines are approved by their leader,” he said.

Meanwhile, the number of community-based education classes in private homes and other locations has doubled to 20,000 over the past year, serving some 600,000 children, more than half of them girls.

“These positive signs are the results of both the commitment from the de facto authorities (IEA) and pressure from local communities to keep schools and community schools open,” said Abdi.

“As long as communities continue to demand education, we must continue to support both public and other forms of education, community-based classrooms, catch-up classes and vocational training.”

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ISIS-K leader reportedly living in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

Sanaullah Ghaffari, also known as Shahab al-Muhajar, is reportedly the ISIS-Khorasan (Daesh) branch leader and is holed up in Pakistan, Reuters reports.

The 29-year-old took over as leader in 2020 and under his leadership the group has carried out extreme attacks as a means of recruiting, Reuters reported.

Reuters noted that little was known about Ghafari before the deadly 2021 ISIS attack on Kabul Airport, which killed 170 Afghan civilians and 13 American soldiers.

But after Friday’s deadly attack in a concert hall in Moscow, which left 139 people dead, Ghaffari’s group has come under intense scrutiny.

Reuters reports that Ghaffari is said to have been involved in several attacks in Afghanistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan.

Pakistani officials said months ago that Ghaffari had been killed in Kunar province in Afghanistan in June last year, but Reuters has reported that he did not die and instead fled to Pakistan and lives in the border province of Baluchistan.

Abdul Matin Qani, the spokesman of the Ministry of Interior of Afghanistan, says that Daesh has been suppressed in Afghanistan for more than two years and has lost its operational capacity.

The last attack carried out by Daesh in Afghanistan was the attack on the Kabul Bank office in Kandahar last week which left three dead and 12 wounded.

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IPL: Sunrisers thump MI in record breaking match

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

It was raining records at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad on Wednesday with the hosts Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) clinching a 31-run victory over Mumbai Indians (MI) in Match 8 of the Tata Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024.

Sunrisers’ batting rewrote the record books on a batting belter after the posted 277 for three.

SRH now have the highest team score in the history of the IPL – beating Royal Challengers Bangalore’s (RCB) 263 for five from the 2013 season.

In reply, MI made a spirited effort, and at one stage, were contenders to do the near impossible. In the slog overs, the enormity of the target proved a bit too much, and SRH clinched victory, but not without numerous nervous moments.

To put into perspective the carnage we witnessed – Heinrich Klaasen’s 23-ball half-century was the slowest fifty of the SRH innings.

Travis Head, playing his first match for SRH, raced to the milestone in 18 balls. Abhishek Sharma got there even faster – in 16 balls – to record the quickest fifty by an SRH batter in IPL history.

While Sunrisers notched up the highest total in the 16-year history of the IPL, just as incredibly, Mumbai Indians almost paid them back with the same coin, their batters coming out with a nothing-to-lose attitude.

The sixes kept rolling off the Mumbai bats too, helping them keep up with the asking rate for most of the chase, eventually however, they ran out of steam and finished on 246 for 5, the highest IPL total in a losing cause.

As ESPNcricinfo reported, never were more runs scored in a men’s T20 match (523). Never were most sixes hit in a men’s T20 (38). At the end of the close to four-hour six-fest, only two bowlers returned with an economy rate of under ten an over.

Thursday, March 28 : Match 9

Thursday’s match at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur sees Rajasthan Royals go up against Delhi Capitals.

Fans in Afghanistan can tune in to Ariana Television to watch the match live from 6.30pm. Alternatively the match can be screened live on arianatelevision.com

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Magnitude 5.2 quake jolts Afghanistan

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

An earthquake measuring a magnitude of 5.2 on the Richter Scale jolted Afghanistan on Thursday afternoon, the National Center for Seismology reported.

The quake was at a depth of 70km and epicentered in the mountainous north-eastern area of Ashkāsham.

The jolt was felt across the region including in Kabul, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan

There were no immediate reports of any casualties.

In October last year, over 2,000 people were killed when four 6.3-magnitude earthquakes struck in Herat province.

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