Doctors Without Borders: Spiking summer temperatures in Afghanistan are threatening some 100,000 displaced people sheltering on the outskirts of the city of Herat. At the same time, humanitarian assistance is being reduced and stores of water are running out. People fled their villages in the provinces of Herat, Faryab, Badghis, and Ghor in northwestern Afghanistan last year during
RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan: A children’s hospital in Kabul is reporting a large increase in patients experiencing respiratory problems as smog and pollution continue to blight the Afghan capital. Kabul, which has seen its population rise rapidly in recent years, currently ranks fourth in a global pollution index.
FP: Wood smuggling is big business for the terrorist group. Small numbers of fighters for the Islamic State of Khorasan Province, the Afghan branch of the militant group, have been in Kunar since 2015. But the group’s new stronghold is in Kunar’s deep forests, inheriting a booming wood industry previously controlled by the Taliban that is now
Al Jazeera: Years of war and fighting have had a devastating effect on forests. Many were destroyed, and Afghan authorities caught up in fighting did not see the disappearing forests as a priority. Meanwhile, by 2013, at least half of Afghanistan’s forests had disappeared. Timber trade has become a profitable business. In the eastern provinces, local people and armed
CNN: You can camp. You can picnic. You can even rent swan-shaped paddle boats to navigate one of six deep blue lakes that shimmer high in the Hindu Kush mountains, amid picturesque red-hued cliffs and rocky natural dams. Sounds like an idyllic vacation destination, until you consider that Band-e Amir National Park lies in the heart
FP: Air pollution is killing more Afghans than the war. According to the State of Global Air, a collaborative initiative between the Health Effects Institute and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, more than 26,000 Afghan deaths could be attributed to pollution in 2017. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan documented nearly 3,500 civilian
Tolo News: The air pollution in Kabul is seasonal and it will increase with the arrival of summer. A report released by an American institution last year listed Afghanistan among the ten cities in the world which have the most polluted air. During winter, as the weather gets cold, the air pollution increases in the city
By RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan April 16, 2019 KABUL — Torrential rains and flooding have swept across much of Afghanistan, killing at least five people, destroying and damaging hundreds of houses, and sweeping away livestock, officials say. Hashmat Bahaduri, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s National Disaster Management Authority (ANDMA), said that heavy rains and flooding have
NPR: Snow leopards and Marco Polo sheep have not been on the agenda for peace talks involving the Taliban, U.S. officials and Afghan opposition figures. But going forward, should they be? “If you’re not managing the natural resources well in Afghanistan, you are undermining the very national security and human security of the people,” says
Ayaz Gul VOA News March 28, 2019 ISLAMABAD — An estimated 10 million people in Afghanistan, more than a quarter of its population, are facing “severe acute” food insecurity and are in need of urgent “life-saving” humanitarian assistance in the wake of recent floods and drought, warns an international relief agency. Three years of drought have