Spotted relief efforts from the Afghanistan earthquake due to funding and access restrictions

A stone and mud house in Nahimgar collapsed over him when the ground was uplifted by theearthquakeinAfghanistanlast week.

He grabbed the rubble in the darkness before dawn and choked the dust while looking for his father and two sisters. Before getting a glimpse of their bodies under the ruins, he doesn't know how many hours of excavation have passed. They were dead.

Now, days after a magnitude 6 quake that devastated remote areas in southeastern Afghanistan, killing at least 1,150 people and injuring hundreds more, Gull saw destruction everywhere, Helping the supply shortage. His niece and nephew were also killed in the earthquake and crushed by the walls of their house.

"I don't know what will happen to us or how we should resume our lives," Gull told The Associated Press on Sunday. His hand was bruised and his shoulder was injured. "We don't have the money to rebuild."

Read more: Calgarians with Afghan families are struggling to help survivors of the earthquake

Border with Pakistan, the poor village where the quake's rage fell most severely A horror shared by thousands of people in Pakistan and Host States along the jagged mountains that straddle.

Those who were barely scraping lost everything. Aid groups and authorities struggling to reach the affected areas on rutted roads have not yet visited many. Some are impassable due to landslides and damage.

Recognizing the constraints, the Taliban, struggling to raise funds, called for foreign aid and appealed to Washington on Saturday to unfreeze billions of dollars in Afghanistan's foreign exchange reserves. The United Nations and a series of international aid groups and countries have been mobilized to send aid.

China on Saturday, including Iran in Pakistan Participated in and promised nearly $ 7.5 million in emergency humanitarian assistance. South Korea, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar have dispatched large numbers of tents, towels, beds and other terribly needed supplies to the areas affected by the earthquake.

UN Secretary-General Special Representative Ramiz Arakbarov visits the affected Paktika province on Saturday and assesses the damage And distributed food, medicine and tents. UN helicopters and trucks loaded with bread, flour, rice and blankets flowed into the disaster area.

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However, due to funding and access constraints, relief efforts are still inadequate. The Taliban, which seized power from the government for 20 years by a U.S.-led military coalition last August, are overwhelmed by the complexity of logistical support for issues such as debris removal, which is becoming a major test of governance. It seems.

Read more: Aftershocks rattle Afghanistan when the number of deaths from the earthquake reaches 1,150

The villagers buried their dead loved ones in a mass grave with their bare hands and slept in the woods despite the rain. According to the United Nations Humanitarian Organization OCHA, nearly 800 families live outdoors.

Gull received a tent and blanket from a local charity in the Gayan district, but he and his surviving relatives had to protect themselves. He said Gayan's children refused to go indoors because the Earth is still trembling as the aftershock on Friday killed five more people. The

quake was the latest disaster that shook Afghanistan, which had recovered from the tragic economic crisis since the Taliban ruled the country when the U.S. and its NATO allies withdrew their troops. .. Foreign aid, which has been the mainstay of the Afghan economy for decades, has virtually stopped overnight.

World Government piles up sanctions, suspends bank transfers, paralyzes trade,TullivanRefused government approval. The Biden administration has blocked the Taliban's access to the $ 7 billion foreign exchange reserves held in the United States.

When he toured the disaster area, Afghanistan's Deputy Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaki released funds to the White House "when Afghanistan was on the verge of earthquakes and floods" and was charitable. He urged the group to lift banking restrictions. It is easier to provide assistance.

Western donors are more inclusive of the Taliban Withheld long-term support to seek for permission. Control and respect human rights. Former militants resisted pressure and imposed restrictions on the freedom of women and girls to remember their first power in the late 1990s.

Currently, about half of the country's 39 million people face life-threatening food insecurity due to poverty. Most civil servants, including doctors, nurses and teachers, have not been paid for months.

UN agencies and other remaining organizations are humanitarian, feeding millions and maintaining health care A system is floating in the program that has been scrambled to protect Afghanistan from the brink of hunger. However, due to the delay in international donors, UN agencies are facing a $ 3 billion shortage of funding this year.

The remote areas struck by the earthquake last Wednesday are not particularly well equipped to deal with them, as they were released from the war and fell into poverty long before the Taliban took over. ..

Some local businessmen have taken action. The Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce said on Sunday that it had raised more than $ 1.5 million for Paktika and Khostika.

Still, help may not be enough for those whose homes have been wiped out.

"We have nothing left," Gul said.

© 2022 TheCanadian Press