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Russian diplomat calls for pooling efforts to resolve humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan

"We will keep an eye on how the new authorities will implement their promises in practice," Russia’s Permanent Representative to the UN Geneva office and other Geneva-based international organizations stressed

GENEVA, September 13. /TASS/. The world community must make efforts to resolve the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan rather than indulge in shifting the responsibility for the situation in that country onto each other, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the UN Geneva office and other Geneva-based international organizations Gennady Gatilov said on Monday at a donor conference on Afghanistan.

"Now, issues of humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan and its post-conflict revival are coming to the fore. The socio-economic tensions, aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic, raise concerns. We believe that in such conditions the world community must consolidate efforts rather than shift responsibility for the situation onto each other. Afghanistan is among the traditional recipients of Russian humanitarian assistance, including via the United Nations. Thus, we provided humanitarian food assistance to Kabul worth six million US dollars via the World Food Program (WFP) in 2018-2021," he said.

"We will keep an eye on how the new authorities will implement their promises in practice," he stressed. The Russian side, in his words, insists that the interests of all Afghanistan’s ethnic and political groups be reckoned with.

"Bearing in mind that a large number of Afghans want to flee the country, it is necessary to prevent any aggravation of the migration situation in the region and in the world. We are worried over the possible infiltration of terrorist and extremist elements into the territories of Afghanistan’s neighbors, especially in Central Asia. We are convinced that the international community, first of all, Kabul’s traditional Western sponsors, must provide active help to the country’s population to reduce or stop migration flows," Gatilov noted.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres convened a conference on economic assistance to Afghanistan in Geneva on Monday. According to UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths, the conference is tasked with raising 606 million US dollars within the next four months to help Afghanistan.

According to Ramiz Alakbarov, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Afghanistan, Afghanistan may run out of food by late September. Today, a third of Afghans don’t know when they will have their next meal. The UN chief has said more than once that Afghanistan will face a humanitarian catastrophe if no assistance is rendered.