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Paktika health director appeals for urgent help for quake victims
Paktika’s provincial health director Dr Hekmatullah Esmat said early Thursday they are desperate for humanitarian aid to assist survivors of Wednesday’s deadly 6.1 magnitude earthquake that hit Afghanistan’s south-eastern region.
Speaking to a team from Ariana News, Esmat said so far at least 3,000 families in Paktika alone are in need of urgent shelter, food and drinking water.
He said “hundreds of families have been killed,” but said the final death toll is not yet known as victims in remote areas have not been brought to the hospital. He said survivors in these remote areas were immediately burying the victims.
According to one survivor, who spoke to Ariana News, he lost 18 members from his 24-member family.
The official death toll has however been put at almost 1,000 but officials have said this tally is expected to rise.
The earthquake struck just before 2am on Wednesday morning, when most people were asleep. Thousands of village houses collapsed, resulting in the high casualty toll.
Acting Minister of Industry and Commerce, Nooruddin Azizi, and Mohammad Sadiq, Pakistan’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, met on Saturday to address ongoing trade and transit challenges, stressing the importance of preventing political tensions from impacting economic ties, the ministry said in a statement.
The two officials focused on finalizing the Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) and resolving issues related to the Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA), the statement read.
The meeting also discussed the upcoming visit of Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister to Afghanistan and a planned visit by an Islamic Emirate delegation to Pakistan.
The ministry hailed Sadiq’s visit to Kabul as a positive step, with Azizi emphasizing its constructive role in enhancing bilateral trade relations.
Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi and Pakistan’s Special Representative for Afghanistan Mohammad Sadiq met on Saturday and discussed bilateral relations, political and economic cooperation, security and transit, said Zia Ahmad Takal, head of public relations at Foreign Ministry in a statement.
In this meeting, Muttaqi emphasized that obstacles to trade and transit are not in anyone’s interest and that certain issues should not be linked together.
He added that the process of Afghan refugees returning from Pakistan should be carried out gradually and with dignity.
According to the statement, Pakistan’s special representative also acknowledged that ensuring security in Afghanistan benefits both Pakistan and the region.
He committed to introducing measures to facilitate the visa issuance process for Afghan citizens.
Mohammad Sadiq also stated that practical steps will be taken to resolve existing trade and transit challenges.
The Afghan embassy in Oslo will resume consular services on coming Monday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kabul announced Saturday.
The ministry said in a statement that the resumption of consular services in Norway was a “positive step.”
In August last year, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kabul declared the consular services of Afghan missions in 14 Western countries including Norway to be invalid.
The statement cited corruption, lack of transparency and non-coordination with the ministry as reasons for the closure.
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