In addition to more than a hundred people, in the economic sector, at least 70,000 head of cattle have been lost due to low temperatures in a country mired in an economic and humanitarian crisis.
At least 157 people have died in Afghanistan’s harsh winter, a Taliban official said Tuesday, with the death toll doubling in less than a week as millions face extreme temperatures with minimal humanitarian aid.
At Least 70 People Died as Cold Sweeps in #Afghanistan. More than 70,000 livestock have also have died due to the extreme cold weather in the county. pic.twitter.com/fmidr4ZxVN
— Saeedullah Safi (@SaeedullahSafi7) January 18, 2023
The country is undergoing one of its coldest winters, with temperatures plummeting to minus 18 Fahrenheit in early January, well below the national average for this time of year.
The impact has been compounded by the limited amount of humanitarian aid being distributed in the country, following the Taliban ban on women working at the UN.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said on Twitter on Sunday that it was delivering aid such as blankets, heat and shelter to some 565,700 people.
“But much more is needed in the midst of one of the coldest periods in years,” he added.
Around 70,000 cattle have also frozen to death across the country, Shafiullah Rahimi, a spokesman for the Taliban’s Ministry of Disaster Management, told CNN on Tuesday.
Since the hardline Islamist group took power in August 2021, Afghanistan has been plunged into an economic and humanitarian crisis.
It has been hit by natural disasters and is entering its third consecutive year of drought-like conditions.
An estimated 28.3 million people, roughly two-thirds of Afghanistan’s population, need urgent humanitarian assistance to survive, according to a UN report.