Emergency NGO warns that people injured in quake continue to arrive
A week after the earthquake, hundreds of people are still in need of assistance. Aftershocks continue and residents who still have a house are leaving. Taliban reject accusations that they killed civilians in the north of the country during a recent crackdown.
Kabul (AsiaNews) – A week after the earthquake that struck south-eastern Afghanistan, hundreds of people are still in need of medical care.
With continuous aftershocks, some of the few people who still have a home have decided to leave for fear that it may collapse.
After the earthquake, “about 150 injured people showed up every day at the first aid clinic set up by Emergency,” said Giovanni Tozzi, logistics coordinator for Emergency, the Italy-based humanitarian organisation founded by Gino Strada, speaking to AsiaNews.
Patients continue to arrive. “The most affected province is that of Paktika, 260 km from Kabul. The quake was felt within a radius of 500 km and destroyed scores of villages,” Tozzi added.
Taliban authorities reported more than a thousand dead and more than 1,500 wounded. The United Nations note that the victims include at least 155 children, while about 700 families have been left homeless, forced to shelter outdoors, 400 in the Barmal district, the closest to the epicentre reachable by NGOs and international aid agencies.
"Immediately after the earthquake we took part in a round table with the Ministry of Health, UN agencies and local NGOs,” Tozzi explained. “We set up a primary health clinic and made our ambulances available to take the most serious patients to our hospital in Kabul where a special ward has been set up”.
The first aid centre closest to Barmal is a “three-hour drive," he added, but “The villages affected by the earthquake are on mountain slopes and can be reached only on foot.”
Weather conditions right after the quake did not help. “Rain turned the ground into mud when it was already hard to travel because of the debris.”
The UN launched an appeal for a US$ 110 million emergency fund, but, quake notwithstanding, the country's problems continue to be the same since US forces withdrew and the Taliban retook Kabul.
Inflation is skyrocketing and there is little cash. People cannot withdraw large sums of money, 23 million people are suffering from hunger, and the rights of women and minorities have been wiped out overnight.
Despite all the difficulties, the work of Emergency in Afghanistan remains important. “There is a risk that it might become another forgotten crisis,” Tozzi said, “but we want to remain in the country as well as keep the spotlight on it.”
Meanwhile, the Taliban yesterday denied attacking civilians in Balkhab, a district in the northern province of Sar-e-Pol, claiming that an Amnesty International report documenting extrajudicial killings in northern Afghanistan was “unfounded”.
The United Nations expressed concern over the Taliban crackdown against a rebellion led by Mehdi Mujahid, a Hazara former spy who fell out with the central government.
For Richard Bennett, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, reports of extrajudicial killings, civilian displacement, property destruction and other human rights abuses in the northern district are “disturbing”.
“Regrettably verification [has been] hampered by info blackout, internet cut & denial of access to media & HR monitors,” he tweeted.
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