A senior United Nations official says the plight of internally-displaced Afghans is "appalling."
U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos met with some 80 families living in a settlement in Kabul Wednesday. She said she was appalled by the unacceptable conditions families, particularly women and kids, are forced to endure within the heart of the capital city.
"The placement as we are able to all see here's deeply, deeply distressing and expecting people to move on living in a majority of these conditions isn't very acceptable," said Amos.
Amos is on a four-day visit to Afghanistan that began Tuesday. The U.N. says she visited the informal settlement made from shanties, with little access to water and sanitation, basic hygiene, and education.
Amos said greater than a 3rd of Afghanistan's population has personal experience of displacement, caused by conflict, recurrent natural hazards and shortage of business opportunity.
The U.N. says that some 5.7 million Afghans have returned to Afghanistan since 2002 "with mixed reintegration results." An extra 5 million Afghans live in Pakistan and Iran. And a few 500,000 Afghans are internally displaced as a result of conflict and natural hazards.
Amos said Wednesday that effective relief and long-lasting solutions to aid the displaced are urgently needed.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
From WhatNewsToday.net
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