Page 7 - aruba-today-20220627

A7
WORLD NEWS Monday 27 June 2022

Destruction everywhere, help scarce after Afghanistan quake

By EBRAHIM NOROOZI and tically overnight.
RAHIM FAIEZ World governments piled
Associated Press on sanctions, halted bank
GAYAN, Afghanistan transfers and paralyzed
(AP) — When the ground trade, refusing to recognize
heaved from last week’s the Taliban government.
earthquake in Afghanistan, The Biden administration
Nahim Gul’s stone-and- cut off the Taliban’s access
mud house collapsed on to $7 billion in foreign cur-
top of him. rency reserves held in the
He clawed through the rub- United States.
ble in the pre-dawn dark- As he toured the disaster
ness, choking on dust as site, Acting Afghan Foreign
he searched for his father Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi
and two sisters. He doesn’t urged the White House to
know how many hours of release the funds “at a time
digging passed before he when Afghanistan is in the
caught a glimpse of their grips of earthquakes and
bodies under the ruins. They floods” and to lift banking
were dead. restrictions so charities can
Now, days after a 6 mag- more easily provide aid.
nitude quake that devas- Western donors have with-
tated a remote southeast held longer-term assistance
region of Afghanistan and Afghan girl carries a donated matrace after an earthquake in Gayan village, in Paktika province, as they demand the Tal-
Afghanistan, Friday, June 24, 2022. A powerful earthquake struck a rugged, mountainous region
killed at least 1,150 people of eastern Afghanistan early Wednesday, flattening stone and mud-brick homes in the country's iban allow a more inclusive
by authorities’ estimates, deadliest quake in two decades, the state-run news agency reported. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noo- rule and respect human
Gul sees destruction ev- roozi rights. The former insurgents
erywhere and help in have resisted the pressure,
short supply. His niece and flicted area on rutted roads ters and trucks laden with Villagers have dug out their imposing restrictions on the
nephew were also killed in — some made impassable bread, flour, rice and blan- dead loved ones with their freedoms of women and
the quake, crushed by the by landslides and damage. kets have trickled into the bare hands, buried them girls that recall their first time
walls of their house. Aware of its constraints, stricken areas. in mass graves and slept in in power in the late 1990s.
The United Nations has put the cash-strapped Taliban “Yesterday’s visit reaf- the woods despite the rain. Now, around half the coun-
the death toll at 770 people have called for foreign as- firmed to me both the ex- Nearly 800 families are living try’s 39 million people are
but warned it could rise fur- sistance and on Saturday treme suffering of people out in the open, according facing life-threatening lev-
ther. Either toll would make appealed to Washington in Afghanistan and their to the U.N.’s humanitarian els of food insecurity be-
the quake Afghanistan’s to unfreeze billions of dol- tremendous resolve in the coordination organization cause of poverty. Most civil
deadliest in two decades. lars in Afghanistan’s cur- face of great adversity,” OCHA. servants, including doctors,
“I don’t know what will rency reserves. The United Alakbarov said, appealing Gul received a tent and nurses and teachers, have
happen to us or how we Nations and an array of in- for the repair of damaged blankets from a local char- not been paid for months.
should restart our lives,” ternational aid groups and water pipes, roads and ity in the Gayan district, U.N. agencies and other
Gul told The Associated countries have mobilized to communication lines in the but he and his surviving remaining organizations
Press on Sunday, his hands send help. area. relatives have had to fend have scrambled to keep
bruised and his shoulder in- China pledged Saturday Without support, he add- for themselves. Terrified as Afghanistan from the brink
jured. “We don’t have any nearly $7.5 million in emer- ed, Afghans “will continue the earth still rumbles from of starvation with a hu-
money to rebuild.” gency humanitarian aid, to endure unnecessary and aftershocks like one on Fri- manitarian program that
It’s a fear shared among joining nations including unimaginable hardship.” day that claimed five more has fed millions and kept
thousands in the impov- Iran, Pakistan, South Korea, But the relief effort remains lives, he said his children in the medical system afloat.
erished villages where the the United Arab Emirates patchy and limited due to Gayan refuse to go indoors. But with international do-
fury of the quake has fallen and Qatar in dispatching funding and access con- The earthquake was the nors lagging, U.N. agencies
most heavily — in Paktika a planeload of tents, tow- straints. The Taliban, which latest calamity to con- face a $3 billion funding
and Khost provinces, along els, beds and other badly seized power last August vulse Afghanistan, which shortfall this year.
the jagged mountains that needed supplies to the from a government sus- has been reeling from a On Sunday, the World
straddle the country’s bor- quake-hit area. tained for 20 years by a dire economic crisis since Health Organization said
der with Pakistan. U.N. Deputy Special Repre- U.S.-led military coalition, the Taliban took control of it was stepping up surveil-
Those who were barely sentative Ramiz Alakbarov appears overwhelmed by the country as the U.S. and lance of infections dis-
scraping by have lost ev- toured the hard-hit Paktika the logistical complexities its NATO allies were with- eases in Afghanistan’s
erything. Many have yet province on Saturday to of issues like debris removal drawing their forces. For- earthquake-hit areas. Af-
to be visited by aid groups assess the damage and in what is shaping up to be eign aid — a mainstay of ghanistan is one of the two
and authorities, which are distribute food, medicine a major test of its capacity Afghanistan’s economy for remaining polio-endemic
struggling to reach the af- and tents. U.N. helicop- to govern. decades — stopped prac- countries in the world.q