UN aims to ‘stabilise people in home areas’

The current drought was affecting the entire western region of Afghanistan to varying degrees, with the worst affected areas being Chagcharan and Shahrak in Ghor, and Jawand and Qadis districts in Badghis province, the Office of the UN Coordinator stated on Tuesday. The overall strategy of the humanitarian community was “to stabilise people in their areas of origin, and to provide live saving support (food and shelter) to those who have no option but to move,” it said. WFP planned to deliver some 30,000 mt of wheat to the Western region over the next six to eight months for emergency interventions only, according to the weekly update from the UN Coordinator’s office. “In the most affected districts of Chagcharan and Jawand it is expected that food will be distributed up to 90 percent of the population,” it said. In the southwest, the effort to mitigate the human suffering due to drought continues with WFP emergency food aid distributions in Kandahar, Zabul and Uruzgan provinces, while food for asset creation and food for work schemes were ongoing in Zabul and Kandahar, it said.