Hungry and cold displaced people in Kabul are getting ready to go through a difficult winter

Internal displaced people line up in front of an HCR installation near Kabul to receive help. © HCR/Tony Aseh

In a center managed by the UNHCR, the United Nations Agency for Refugees, about fifteen kilometers from Kabul, many people, men, women and children are queuing under the fall sun.Hand distribution coupons, they are waiting to be able to cross the center door, guarded by a Taliban soldier.

Inside, UNHCR and other humanitarian agencies distribute essential items to more than 1,000 displaced Afghans from different regions of the country and now installed in Kabul.They receive blankets, plastic tarpaulins, stoves, buckets, water cans, soap, hygiene kits and kitchen utensils.The most vulnerable also receive cash allowance.

Most of them sleep under the stars or under makeshift shelters in one of the city's two public parks.Those who have the means rent apartments everywhere in the city.

With the winter, which is fast approaching, temperatures in the capital are already around 0 ° C at night and can go down to -25 ° C in the middle of winter, exposing people who sleep outside at hypothermia.

During a distribution of basic necessities, an elderly woman sitting alone on a bench begins to tremble uncontrollable.UNHCR staff rushes to help him and learn that she has not eaten for several days and that she is about to collapse.

This woman is not the only one to desperately need help.Further on, a mother pleads for an additional packet of cereals in order to be able to feed her children.And a 65-year-old grandfather explains that he has been trying to take care of 26 family members since their return to their native region from Pakistan in July, to discover that their house had disappeared.They went to Kabul where they have lived under the stars since August.

"We spend days without eating," he says, adding that a pack of food for a family of seven people is not enough."But right now, all help is welcome."

Afghanistan faces an increasingly serious humanitarian emergency situation.The economy is on the verge of collapse and almost half of the population now depends on humanitarian aid.The country has more than 3.5 million people displaced by the conflict.Among them, nearly 700,000 were forced to flee, just this year.

"Before fleeing our village, I worked in the building as plastering," says Safi Ullah, 25, who fled the province of Nangarhar in July.“The rockets kept falling near our houses.We were forced to join Kabul with only the clothes we had on our backs, when our house caught fire after being touched.»»

Insecurity is not the only reason that pushes people to abandon their homes.Afghanistan is currently experiencing its second severe drought in four years.This hardly affects food production.

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“In our own province, we were faced with drought and economic problems.Our farms did not produce enough and we had no other source of income, ”says Ullah.

Hunger was already a widespread phenomenon even before the Taliban took control of the government two months ago, but the situation has worsened considerably according to the latest assessment of the global food program.In mid-September, only 5% of Afghans had enough to eat and one in three was in a crisis or food emergency.

In the past two weeks, UNHCR has helped around 100,000 people through Afghanistan by providing them with emergency shelters, covers, solar panels and cash for the most vulnerable.In total, more than half a million inappropriate people have benefited from assistance since the start of the year.

A logistics platform has been installed in the long term, in Uzbekistan to quickly prepare and transport aid to Afghanistan.UNHCR intensifies its response to reach more displaced people before winter settles, but additional resources are necessary.Only 35% of the funds required to finance operations over the next two months have been received to date.

Ahmad Seraaj, 14, and his family fled the province of Maidan Wardak, in the center of Afghanistan, to get in safety in the capital.

"We are a family of 13 people and we moved to Kabul after our house was touched by mortar shells," he said, while his father and queue to get food.“We have only taken away a few personal effects and we are faced with financial problems because we cannot find a job here.We greatly need help.»»

Although the fighting has stopped, insecurity persists in their region of origin and the family is too afraid to return.

According to United Nations statistics, some 156,000 displaced people have chosen to go home since the end of the fighting.During last week, the UNHCR helped 660 families return home to the regions of the north of the country.Returned people receive $ 200 per household to pay transportation and an additional $ 400 to help them reintegrate.Two hundred and eighty other families will receive aid to enter the highlands of the center before the end of October.

But many of the people displaced in Kabul fear that they are not much left to find, their houses and their livelihoods having been destroyed by the fighting.

"I cannot go back," said Mehrabudin, 28, who fled the clashes in the province of Parwan in July."What are I going to do there?"I don't have a house and there is no work.»»

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