(31 Dec 2020) More than 300,000 children in war-ravaged Afghanistan face freezing winter conditions that can lead to illness and death without proper winter clothing and heating, a humanitarian organisation said on Thursday.
The organisation, Save the Children, said in a statement on Thursday that early snow in northern Afghanistan has impacted children particularly badly.
The ongoing military conflict in Afghanistan has destroyed many homes and forced thousands of children to shelter in camps for the homeless.
They are at risk of not only hunger and disease, including COVID-19, but also death from freezing temperatures.
In the northern part of the capital Kabul, more than 700 families live in a camp, with the majority of them having been displaced by violence in their hometowns.
They and other families keep warm and cook by burning the garbage that surrounds them.
“It is cold at night, cold in morning, we don't have wood, we don't have charcoal," said 10-year-old Mohammad Dad, who lives at the camp.
Mohammad's grandmother, 50-year-old Raihan, lives with seven members of her son's family at the camp.
She said the fires they make from discarded plastic does little to keep them warm.
Save the Children has provided winter kits to more than 100,000 families in 12 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.
The kits include fuel and a heater, blankets and winter clothes for children including coats, socks, shoes, hats.
Schools have also been ordered to stay closed until March in the coldest parts of Afghanistan, where the temperature can plummet to as low as minus 27 degrees Celsius (minus 16 degrees Fahrenheit).
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