John, Afghans need your help
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Dear John,

I’m sure you will remember the shocking events in Afghanistan this August, as the Taliban retook power and families fled for their lives.

As a new humanitarian crisis was beginning, I was deployed there on mission and I have just returned from three difficult months where I saw with my own eyes the extremely dire situation that many Afghan families, including young children, women and older people, are in. And now, the coldest months of the year are starting.

My colleagues and I are incredibly worried for the coming harsh winter. Across the country - from Kabul, down to Kandahar, and up to Kunduz - over 3.5 million of people are displaced. 

 
 
 
 
In many parts of the country temperatures are already below freezing at night and without insulated shelters, warm clothes or heating fuel, many Afghans are unprepared to face the bitter cold. Families may go through the winter living in flimsy shelters and wondering how to afford their next meal.

In the capital Kabul, Sahib and her husband Mohammed – an elderly displaced couple – told me about their daily struggles to survive. Everyone in the family has to contribute, just to be able to eat. They haven’t been able to pay their rent for four months. Sahib is baking as many as 100 loaves of bread each day to sell, but it’s still not enough to make ends meet. Can you imagine knowing the coldest days of the year are ahead and that by then, you could be living on the street?

What’s more, a severe drought has been withering crops, the climate crisis is making disasters more extreme and frequent, and the COVID-19 pandemic is putting families at further risk of poverty and hunger. It was, and still is, an unimaginably difficult situation.

UNHCR is reaching tens of thousands of people with aid every week. But we also find tens of thousands more that need our help as millions are at risk of hunger and starvation.
 
 
 
 
John, your help makes it possible to respond to this crisis with emergency aid and supplies – items like thermal blankets and warm clothing that families need, and UNHCR can deliver – but not without you. With your support, families in Afghanistan can receive items they desperately need like heating fuel, or a plastic sheet to insulate their makeshift homes against the worst of the weather. These simplest of things can help a person survive the winter.
 
 

Please, Afghans need you!

 
 
Babar Baloch
Senior Spokesperson
UNHCR
 
 
UNHCR The UN refugee Agency
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