DEATH TOLL IN AFGHANISTAN COLD SNAP RISES TO 166

Sat 28 January 2023:

An official reported on Saturday that at least 166 people have died in a wave of severely cold weather that has been sweeping Afghanistan, adding to the misery of the impoverished country.

Since January 10, Afghanistan has been frozen by low temperatures as low as -33 degrees Celsius (-27 degrees Fahrenheit), along with heavy snowfall, ice gales, and frequent power outages.

Aid agencies had warned before the cold snap that more than half of Afghanistan’s 38 million people were facing hunger, while nearly four million children were suffering from malnutrition.

The disaster management ministry said on Saturday the death toll had risen by 88 over the past week and now stood at 166, based on data from 24 of the nation’s 34 provinces.

The deaths were caused by floods, fires and leaks from gas heaters that Afghan families use to heat their homes, ministry official Abdul Rahman Zahid said in a video statement.

Some 100 homes were destroyed or damaged and nearly 80,000 livestock, a vital commodity for Afghanistan’s poor, also died in the cold.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said this week 17 people had died in a single village in northeastern Badakhshan province due to an outbreak of “acute respiratory infection.”

“Harsh weather prevents help from reaching the area,” the WHO said.

Afghanistan is in its second winter since US-backed forces withdrew and the Taliban reclaimed power in Kabul.

Foreign aid has plummeted since then, and the US has seized key central bank assets, exacerbating what is widely regarded as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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