Disasters & Accidents

UN: $1 billion aid for Afghanistan sidestepped Taliban

Kabul, Oct. 4 (EFE).- The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said on Tuesday that the more than $1 billion in aid delivered over the past one year to Afghanistan was out of reach of the Taliban, amid fears that these humanitarian funds would be misused.

“To clarify: The UN has brought in to Afghanistan +$1billion over the last year to provide life-saving humanitarian assistance to millions of Afghans most in need. The cash is put in a commercial bank,” UNAMA tweeted.

“The funds are not provided to the de facto authorities nor the @AFGCentralbank,” it added, referring to the Afghan central bank.

UNAMA’s clarification came after the Afghan central bank (DAB) said in a statement Monday that the Asian country had received $40 million in humanitarian aid from the international community, which was deposited in a commercial bank.

“Da Afghanistan Bank welcomes the flow of foreign currency into the country through legal and accepted methods and requests that such aid be managed through the banking sector,” tweeted DAB.

The management of aid, in the context of a serious humanitarian and economic crisis in Afghanistan, accentuated by the seizure of power by the Taliban in August 2021, has been a source of friction in the international community.

Last month, the United States decided to transfer $3.5 billion of the Afghan central bank’s reserves, frozen after the Taliban’s return, to a fund in Switzerland.

The move was justified by US authorities’ fear that the fundamentalists, several of whose leaders remain on the UN blacklist, would use the $7 billion of Afghan funds – frozen after the Taliban’s capture of power in August 2021 – for illicit activities. EFE

lk-daa/sc

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