Afghanistan Peace Campaignby Bharat Dogra
CounterCurrents.org
Floods, landslides and storms have aggravated the already serious humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. Earlier drought conditions had troubled many farmers and villages. In 2023 a series of earthquakes killed thousands of people and caused other massive damage, particularly in Herat.
Outbreak of Iran war on February 28, as well as preceding disturbances, further increased the problems of Afghanistan by causing trade disruptions on land routes. Earlier these were aggravated on the other long border also due to prolonged hostilities with Pakistan. When there are disturbances on the land borders with two main neighboring countries, the problems of a landlocked country like Afghanistan can be imagined. In the course of recent hostilities with Pakistan, there have been several airstrikes on Afghanistan. One of these on March 16 resulted in a great tragedy as a very large number of people died or were injured in the Omid de-addiction center; according to the Afghanistan government nearly 400 persons died in this attack. Other estimates mention a lesser number, but the number of dead and injured persons has been quoted at very high levels in most estimates.
Pakistan and Iran have also expelled a very large number of refugees from Afghanistan, forcing them to return to their home country at a time when it is already faced with a serious humanitarian crisis. According to recent estimates, over 5 million refugees have returned from Pakistan and Iran during the last 30 months or so. Thus while in most serious humanitarian crisis situations we see refugees going out in large numbers, here we see a reverse situation of over 5 million people returning.
According to a recent United Nations report dated March 9, 2026 at least 17.1 million persons needed humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan (this was a very conservative estimate and the figure had been deliberately kept low keeping in view a serious shortage of resources). For this 1.71 billion dollars were estimated to be needed but at the time of preparing this report only about 10% of this budget had been arranged.
The situation in Afghanistan deteriorated with the departure of US forces in August 2021 as many development aid and humanitarian aid programs of the USA and its allies were stopped while many sanctions were also imposed. Thus assistance as well as salaries of a large number of people stopped at a time when weather conditions were also very adverse. A national drought was declared in 2021, the worst in the last 30 years or so. In June 2023 UN-OCHA reported that the World Food Program had to cut food assistance to 8 million food-insecure people here due to fund constraints.
Hence several factors have combined together to create a situation in which the need for the USA to speed up the transfer of 7 billion dollars of Afghanistan held there for several years have increased. This urgency has increased further in the increasingly difficult conditions of 2026.
This transfer should not be delayed any longer. If the delay is due to apprehensions of any of this being put for dangerous uses, then a UN committee of persons known to be entirely sympathetic to the needs of the people of Afghanistan and committed to peace can be set up and on the basis of their monitoring these funds can be transferred for meeting humanitarian and development needs over a period of about two years, with at least 2 billion dollars being sent more or less immediately to meet urgent needs. Let us also not forget the basic fact that these are Afghanistan funds. .
In June 2022 the International Federation of Red Cross had said that 70% of the people here are unable to meet essential food and non-food needs. Earlier in 2022 the UN Secretary General had expressed concern at the “epic humanitarian crisis on the verge of a development catastrophe.”
In late April 2022, several independent human rights experts linked to the United Nations said, in a joint statement released by the United Nations Human Rights (Office of the High Commissioner), that in this country with a total population (then) of about 42 million, about 23 million needed food assistance while as many as 95% had insufficient food consumption. They said that the growing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan had put at serious risk the lives of more than half of the country’s population, with disproportionate impact on women and children.
These UN linked human rights experts expressed very serious concern at the freezing of Afghanistan central bank assets by the USA which has led to denial of funds for essential help needed by people immediately. They put forward a very clear demand, “We call on US government to take into serious consideration the growing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan and to re-assess its decision to block the Da Afghanistan Bank’s ( DAB’s) foreign assets.” The need for this is even higher today.
The decision to freeze assets (as well as imposition of other sanctions by the USA and its allies), apart from denying funds for urgent relief and disrupting essential banking functions, has also led to several indirect and wider adverse impacts. As the statement of UN-linked human rights experts further stated, in the prevailing conditions “humanitarian actors face serious operational challenges due to the uncertainty caused by banks’ zero risk policies and over-compliance with sanctions.” Thus on the one hand it becomes more difficult to take relief to the weaker sections, and on the other hand middle class members including those used to living earlier on more or less regular salaries are being pushed into poverty.
Soon after the US army left in a hurry and the Taliban seized power in 2021, the US froze Afghan Central Bank assets worth 7 billion dollars while its allies froze assets worth an additional 2 billion dollars, apart from imposing other sanctions.
Following growing appeals and demands to de-freeze these assets, the USA announced in September 2022 to make available half the frozen assets—about 3.5 billion dollars– to a foundation for utilization in Afghanistan while the remaining half was diverted to help the 9/11 victims. This diversion has been criticized as being highly unfair, even by some representatives of 9/11 victims who have publicly stated that they do not want funds which are meant for the most highly distressed people of Afghanistan.
Has at least the other half been utilized for preventing hunger and starvation in Afghanistan? As a report by Sarah Lazare writing for ‘In These Times’ (in mid-December 2022) revealed, on the basis of interviews with two of the trustees who were supposed to handle the use of 3.5 billion dollars for helping the people of Afghanistan, in the 3 months following the ‘de-freeze’, these were not used for this purpose and immediate prospects for these being used to help the people did not appear to be bright at all.
A Reuters report dated July 21, 2023 by Jonathan Landay and Charlotte Greenfield stated—A US funded audit of Afghanistan’s Taliban run central bank failed to win Washington backing for a return of bank assets from a $3.5 billion Swiss-based trust fund.
Meanwhile there were also reports that substantial parts of the diverted funds were also being cornered to a significant extent by rich lawyers and lobbyists instead of really reaching the 9/11 victims.
UN humanitarian help officials in Afghanistan have been struggling with increasing shortage of funds. The UN is facing difficulties this year to collect its target of $ 1.7 billion for Afghanistan based humanitarian assistance work while only 10% of this had been arranged till early March. Compare this with $ 7 billion held by the USA and some additional funds held by its close allies very unjustly at a time when Afghanistan is passing through one of its worst crisis periods.
In such conditions the distress of the people of Afghanistan is likely to further escalate sharply. Already there have been reports ( published in The Guardian, UK, and elsewhere) of a booming kidney sale market as some desperate people have even been forced to sell their kidneys to feed an international, substantially illegal market for organs. There are reports of kidney sale price declining by a half or more and still more people willing to sell even at this low price. Hence a campaign for justice should be stepped up substantially to ensure that the entire 7 to 9 billion dollars are returned to Afghanistan for priority use to reduce hunger and other distress. In addition the humanitarian assistance and development effort should be stepped up significantly.