The United Nations (UN) and the World Food Programme (WFP) have said that Taliban-controlled Afghanistan is facing a food crisis and they are in talks with India for wheat donation because about 3.2 million Afghan children under five could suffer from acute malnutrition by the end of the year and at least one million are at risk of dying.
Mary-Ellen McGroarty, the WFP country director in Afghanistan, said discussions have taken place over the last two weeks and she hoped donations from India will resume to Afghanistan as the country is now faced with the real threat of mass starvation.
McGroarty has asked if India, which had donated 75,000 tonnes of wheat last year to do the same and resume food aid. However, since Pakistan did not like the democratically elected government in Afghanistan, the food aid of 75,000 tonnes which could have been easily sent directly by land, had to be sent from the Indian-built port at Chabahar in Iran and from there into Afghanistan via roads constructed by India.
She said, “It’s a conversation that’s going on with my office, locally in India. So this conversation has been going on for a couple of weeks now. So hopefully, we can bring that to a good conclusion and hopefully we’ll see another donation coming in because … there’s a big deficit of 2.5 million tons this year in Afghanistan. “So really we need all the help we can get,” she said remotely at a news conference.
However, the major impediment is Pakistan which is blocking land routes for India to send food aid to Afghanistan and this problem was highlighted by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar pointed at a high-level meeting convened last month by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on emergency aid for Afghanistan.
At the meeting, Jaishshankar said, “Among the challenges that the current situation poses, is that of efficient logistics. It is therefore essential that humanitarian assistance providers are accorded unimpeded, unrestricted, and direct access to Afghanistan,”.
India did not make any aid commitments at the meeting but there are other donors who pledged aid worth more than $1 billion, but the issue at hand is will the aid reach the people of Afghanistan as no one wants to hand over aid to the Taliban as it is controlled by the corrupt army of Pakistan.
However, Pakistan or China is a wheat exporter and now the Taliban whose Pakistan army-backed leader Anas Haqqani, in a provocative act, glorified Mahmud Ghaznavi who destroyed the Somnath temple. Haqqani took to Twitter as he glorified Ghaznavi who had demolished the Somnath idol
Now the Taliban who control Afghanistan have to rely on India for quick supplies of wheat to avert a massive humanitarian crisis.
Describing the situation in Afghanistan which has suffered two droughts in three years, McGroarty said at her news conference, “They are not eating every day, they’re decreasing the portion sizes, they’re eating less healthy foods, and many parents are forgoing to feed their children. In Herat, we saw the hospitals that are becoming overcrowded with severely malnourished children. We’ve met women who are able to feed their children,”.
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