No Afghan exodus to Pakistan, Iran – UN
GENEVA: Afghanistan could face a major crisis without trade and support flows, and the international community should not turn a blind eye to the situation, a United Nations official stressed on Friday.Babar Baloch, speaking from Pakistan for the United Nations Refugee Agency, told a UN press briefing that the agency was not seeing a large influx of refugees trying to cross Afghanistan’s borders to Pakistan and Iran, and the reasons behind this were being analyzed.In fact, a displacement crisis is taking place inside Afghanistan, the UN official said.However, it is difficult to gather information on the uncertain situation inside Afghanistan, as well as at the borders with neighboring countries.Traditionally, there has always been a lot of movement of persons and commercial flows between Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan, Baloch explained.Currently, Afghans are still able to come through, but ID documents and visas must be shown.According to the latest UN figures, almost half of Afghanistan’s population, or 18 million people, need humanitarian assistance in order to survive.One in three Afghans does not know where their next meal will come from, while more than half of all children under five are expected to become acutely malnourished in the next year.In related news, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres was also to convene a high-level meeting on Afghanistan in Geneva on September 13 to focus on humanitarian assistance for the country.The United Nations has already restarted humanitarian flights to parts of the country, while the country’s flag carrier Ariana Afghan Airlines resumed domestic flights on Friday and the United Arab Emirates sent a plane carrying “urgent medical and food aid.”Western Union and Moneygram, meanwhile, said they were restarting money transfers, which many Afghans rely on from relatives abroad to survive, and Qatar said it was working to reopen the airport in Kabul.China, meanwhile, confirmed it will keep its embassy in Kabul open.
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