Thousands affected by a deadly earthquake in eastern Afghanistan are in need of clean water and food and are at risk of disease, an Afghan health ministry official said on Sunday after a UN agency warned of a cholera outbreak in the region.
The Afghan health ministry spokesperson said that officials had managed medicines for now but handling those who had lost their homes would be a challenge, because the people are extremely needy for food and clean water.
He said that the international community, humanitarian organizations, to help us for food and medicine, the survivors might catch diseases because they don't have adequate houses and shelters for living.
The disaster is a big test for Afghanistan's hardline Taliban rulers who have been shunned by many foreign governments due to concerns about human rights since they took control of the country last year.
Helping thousands of Afghans is a challenge for countries that had imposed sanctions on Afghan government bodies and banks, cutting off direct assistance, which has resulted in a humanitarian crisis even before the earthquake. After quake kills 1,000 The United Nations and several other countries, Afghans have rushed aid to the affected areas, with more due to arrive over the coming days. Afghanistan's Taliban administration called for a reversal of sanctions and lifting of a freeze on money in central bank assets stashed in Western financial institutions. More hospitals in Kabul have opened their wards to treating victims of war, but a majority of people are still in the areas destroyed by the earthquake. Our houses were destroyed, we have no tent. There are lots of children with us. We have nothing. Everything is under rubble, said Hazrat Ali, 18, in Wor Kali, a village of the hardest-hit Barmal district. My heart is broken because I lost my brothers. We are just two. He said that I loved them a lot.