In ongoing efforts to help at-risk Afghans, the Bayat Foundation this week provided life-saving aid packages to flood-hit families in Mawara-ye Kokcha area in Takhar province. 

Bayat Foundation officials in the northeastern part of the country said Thursday that the aid packages, including flour, rice and oil, were distributed to needy families after a survey was conducted.

The flood victims welcomed the shipment of aid from Bayat Foundation, and called on other organizations and businessmen to help them as soon as possible.

Two people were killed in the recent floods in six districts of Takhar, while hundreds of houses and thousands of acres of land were destroyed and hundreds of livestock lost.

Bayat Foundation is one of the largest charitable organizations in the country, and continuously helps victims of natural disasters.

Last week, Bayat Foundation also sent three consignments of aid to Paktika and Khost provinces. The aid was distributed to quake-hit victims. Foundation officials say they are determined to provide more assistance to needy families across the country.

At least one participant at a major gathering of religious scholars in Kabul on Thursday called for secondary schools for girls to reopen.

“They will learn and will be a good guide for their children in society,” said Sayed Nasrullah Waizi, from central Bamiyan province, as he called on the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) to reopen girls’ schools.

He said that education will help prevent moral and administrative corruption.

IEA’s Acting Prime Minister Mullah Mohammad Hasan Akhund meanwhile said in his speech at the gathering that the meeting was aimed at addressing challenges and strengthening the administration.

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is trying to solve all problems … this government has been reached after a lot of sacrifice, we should work together to strengthen it,” Akhund said.

Around 3,500 religious scholars and tribal leaders are at the event which is expected to run for three days.

It comes as Afghanistan is in a deep economic crisis as billions in central bank reserves have been frozen and international sanctions enforced on the banking sector after the IEA seized power.

Prime minister of Pakistan-administered Kashmir has approved 100 million rupees ($484,000) for last week’s earthquake victims in Afghanistan, it was reported Thursday.

Kashmir’s cabinet and top bureaucracy also donated one month’s salary for the relief of the people of Afghanistan, Pakistani newspaper The News reported.

Sardar Tanveer Ilyas, the prime minister of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, said that the people of Pakistan and Kashmir are saddened by the loss of life and property caused by the recent earthquake in Afghanistan.

He said, in this hour of sorrow, the people of Pakistan and Kashmir stand with their brothers.

He said that a delegation representing the government of Kashmir will go to Afghanistan to deliver aid.

More than 1,000 people were killed in the 6.1-magnitude earthquake in Afghanistan’s eastern provinces of Paktika and Khost on June 22. Thousands of homes were damaged or destroyed.