The newly appointed Taliban envoy to the United Nations has called for rapid international recognition of Afghanistan’s new rulers, while the World Health Organization has warned of an impending health disaster in the stricken country.
The humanitarian crisis is one of the many challenges the Taliban have faced since they took control of Afghanistan last month, including new threats from the Islamic State, which recently escalated its attacks, targeting Taliban elements in its stronghold in the east of the country. country.
In an emergency measure, United Nations aid coordinator Martin Griffiths released $45 million in aid to Afghanistan from the world body’s emergency fund on Wednesday.
The World Health Organization has warned that the health system in Afghanistan is on the verge of collapse and urgent measures are required. A WHO team led by the agency’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, recently visited Kabul and met with Taliban leaders, among others.
“The country is facing an imminent humanitarian catastrophe,” the World Health Organization said, adding that thousands of health facilities do not have the funds to purchase medical supplies and pay health workers’ salaries.
“Many of these facilities have reduced their operations or closed, leading health providers to make difficult decisions about who should be saved and who will die,” the World Health Organization said, highlighting “the need for women to maintain access to education, health care and health workers.” field of health.”
And Griffiths warned that “allowing the collapse of the health care system in Afghanistan would be disastrous.” People across Afghanistan “will be denied access to primary health care, such as emergency caesarean sections and trauma care.”
The Taliban had earlier written to the United Nations to announce that Sohail Shaheen, a former peace negotiator and spokesman for the Taliban’s political office, was their new representative on the body. They called for Shaheen to be allowed to address the United Nations General Assembly during this week’s session in New York.
We cover all requirements for government recognition. We therefore hope that the United Nations, as a neutral international body, will recognize the current government of Afghanistan.
The Afghan delegation is scheduled to be the last speaker at the General Assembly on Monday, and if there is no international recognition of the Taliban government by then, the speaker will be Afghan Ambassador Ghulam Isakzai.
Currently, Izakzai is recognized as the country’s ambassador to the United Nations, but the Taliban, who took control of Afghanistan last month, claim that they are now in a position of leadership and have the right to appoint their own representatives.
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