8am: In a press release, the Freedom Front stated that the attack took place at 7:40 PM on Sunday, December 24, near the Taliban Security Command in Pul-e Khumri city. According to the press release, as a result of this attack, one Taliban fighter was killed, and four others were wounded. Click here to read more (external link).
Tolo News in Dari – December 25, 2023
Afghans Marry in Mass Ceremony in Bid to Cut Costs
AFP: Fifty couples married Monday in a joint ceremony in the Afghan capital — a growing practice to reduce the astronomical cost of traditional weddings in the impoverished country. The couples were joined in matrimony in one of the dozens of glitzy wedding halls that punctuate Kabul, but the ceremony itself was somewhat austere. Click here to read more (external link).
Children Under Taliban Rule: UN Reports Instances of Sexual Exploitation
8am: The organization identified child labor, sexual exploitation, high dropout rates, and migration as severe violations of children’s rights. Specifically, the report underscored that the Taliban’s prohibition on girls’ education exposes many girls to egregious forms of violence, including honor killings, underage marriages, and heightened instances of family violence. Designated violators of children’s rights in Afghanistan include Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA) led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the Taliban, especially the Haqqani network, and the ISIS Khorasan (IS-K), due to their involvement in recruiting, exploiting, and killing children. Click here to read more (external link).
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Tolo News in Dari – December 24, 2023
Pakistan Claims 92 Afghans Involved in Attacks in Last 2 Years
Tolo News: ARY, a Pakistani media outlet, cited a report of the country’s Counter Terrorism Department that claimed 92 terrorists who were arrested for their alleged involvement in terror incidents in two years were Afghan nationals, and “terrorists of Afghan origin carried out 50 terror attacks in 2023 across Pakistan.” Click here to read more (external link).
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Residents of Badghis Province Voice Complaints Against Taliban’s Interference in Humanitarian Aid Distribution
8am: Sources in Badghis province claim that Taliban commanders and fighters allocate humanitarian aid in specific areas of the province, or distribute this aid to the families of their fighters who were killed in previous conflicts. According to them, the distribution of aid in this province is not fair, benefiting only the residents of Taliban-controlled villages and the relatives of the Taliban. Click here to read more (external link).
WHO Points to Risks Facing Anti-Polio Gains in Pakistan, Afghanistan
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
December 23, 2023
ISLAMABAD — Only 12 children around the world have been paralyzed by wild poliovirus so far this year, all of them in Pakistan and Afghanistan — with six reported in each.
They are the last two countries in which the highly infectious disease still exists.
Moreover, the World Health Organization has warned that the countries’ vaccination programs continue to miss a large number of children, posing a significant risk to gains made against the crippling wild Type 1 poliovirus.
In addition, Pakistan’s campaign to repatriate undocumented Afghans has increased the risk of cross-border poliovirus spread and spread within the two countries, the WHO said in a statement Friday.
Since mid-September, nearly half a million Afghans have returned to Afghanistan, escaping the crackdown on foreigners living illegally in Pakistan. The number of returning Afghans is expected to reach 1.7 million.
Pakistani officials have reported a sharp increase in environmental detections lately, documenting 60 positive samples since September and bringing the year’s total to 82.
Samples have been found in major cities, including Quetta, Karachi, Peshawar, Rawalpindi and the national capital, Islamabad, the WHO said.
It said political instability, insecurity in some areas and vaccination boycotts continue to hinder anti-polio efforts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, whose capital is Peshawar. The province borders Afghanistan, and four of this year’s six reported polio infections were in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The rest were detected in Karachi, the country’s most populous southern port city, which had recorded zero cases in the last two years. Officials said both polio cases are children from Afghan refugee families.
Pakistan, with a population of about 241 million, came close to eradicating polio in 2021, when it reported only one case of paralysis from the virus. However, the country saw a spike in 2022, with 20 confirmed cases of infection.
Afghanistan has not reported new polio cases since August, and the virus has been cornered in its eastern Nangarhar border province, which reported all six infections this year.
The WHO cited an improvement in the quality of the vaccination campaign in the eastern regions of Afghanistan.
It noted in its Friday statement, though, that difficulties remain in various southern provinces, where almost 200,000 children are yet to be reached during the vaccination campaign.
“Any setback in Afghanistan poses a risk to the program in Pakistan due to high population movement,” the U.N. health agency said.
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Tolo News in Dari – December 23, 2023
Taliban Court in Ghazni Sentences 20 Individuals to Three Years in Prison on Charges of Membership in Hizb ut-Tahrir
8am: According to the sources, all the individuals sentenced to prison by the Taliban court are students and university students. As of now, the Taliban has not officially commented on this matter. It is worth mentioning that the Taliban have prohibited the activities of Hizb ut-Tahrir, Jamiat Eslah, and the Muslim Youth Organization in Afghanistan. Click here to read more (external link).