The United Nations top humanitarian official, Martin Griffiths, who is stepping down from his post at the end of June, said on Tuesday at a briefing that he was leaving the job “with a sense of work unfulfilled because the world is a worse place now than when I joined up in 2021.”

Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and head of OCHA (the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) said Tuesday the Islamic Emirate has not fulfilled its obligations over human rights.

Speaking at a briefing Griffiths said the Islamic Emirate, after regaining control of Afghanistan, made commitments to the international community regarding the provision of human rights, especially women’s rights.

“I had spent a lifetime working in Afghanistan in one way or another. And we had some hopes then, we had indeed some written commitments then as to how we would be able to go forward with the Taliban (Islamic Emirate) – and those hopes have been dashed,” he said.

“The edicts against women and girls have come one after the other, and the degree to which and the issues upon which the international community engages with the Taliban (Islamic Emirate) on behalf of the people of Afghanistan is still a conversation,” he added.

He went on to say however that this issue was superseded by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Then, just months later, focus shifted to Gaza and Sudan. He noted that the UN’s attention is now on “big crises” – Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, but that Syria, Yemen, and Haiti “are places still of great suffering”.

Griffiths was appointed Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator in May 2021.He will step down at the end of June for health reasons.