UN agency hopes to reach 11.1 mln people in Afghanistan with aid

By:Xinhua
update:June 12,2020

UNITED NATIONS, June 12,2020 -- With the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on top of armed conflict and natural disasters in Afghanistan, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Thursday that it hopes to reach 11.1 million people there with aid.

The OCHA put the cost of assisting them at 1.1 billion U.S. dollars.

"Even before the pandemic reached Afghanistan, 9.4 million people needed humanitarian assistance to obtain food, clean water, basic healthcare and other essentials," the office said.

Economic consequences of the pandemic threaten to push even more people into financial insecurity and, in some cases, acute humanitarian need, it said.

While OCHA said in its Humanitarian Response Plan that 35 million of the 37.6 million people in Afghanistan lack a "humanitarian social net," 14 million of them are in "humanitarian need."

Of the 11.1 million people it hopes to reach, 5.8 million people have needs attributed to COVID-19. The OCHA said 53 percent of those targeted for humanitarian aid are children.

So far, only 227 million U.S. dollars have been received for the Humanitarian Response Plan, the office said.