Hundreds of families flee to Kabul from embattled northern provinces

Hundreds of families have fled to Kabul to escape the violence in the north of the country.

Many of these families are now living in tents, in the heat of summer, in Sar-e-Shamali and Khairkhana areas in Kabul.

Most of these internally displaced people (IDPs) fled to Kabul from Kunduz, Takhar and Baghlan provinces, an Ariana News reporter who visited the area said.

Some of these families say they were forced to flee their homes due to recent conflict in their provinces, and left all their belongings behind.

These families use only tents for shelter.

They say that government has not helped them yet and have called on the authorities to assist.

Dozens of children are among the displaced, according to an Ariana News reporter.

These IDPs, whose exact numbers are unknown, are facing a shortage of drinking water and medicine.

Rahmuddin, one of the displaced who fled Kunduz province, told Ariana News that the Taliban were using civilian homes in Kunduz province as shields and that they had been forced to flee.

“There was a lot of terror in the city of Kunduz, and the bodies were lying on the roads. The Taliban were very brutal and made people their shields,” Rahmuddin said.

He says that they are facing many problems and so far only the residents of Kabul have provided them with water and food, but that government has not yet helped.

This comes after the UN stated in a report last month that at least 330,000 people have been displaced in the last seven months due to an increase in conflict across Afghanistan.

“So far in 2021, 330,000 people have been displaced by conflict across Afghanistan. Another five million people remain displaced since 2012,” the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) reported.

As conflict intensifies in northern Afghanistan and other parts of the country, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, warned of an imminent humanitarian crisis, saying failure to reach a peace agreement will see further displacement.