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Reuters
KABUL
International aid groups needs more than a half a billion dollars this year to help millions of Afghans struggling with increased violence and a bleak economy, as a humanitarian crisis worsens, a senior UN official told Reuters.
The United Nations estimates at least 9.3 million Afghans, or nearly a third of the population, will need humanitarian assistance in 2017, a 13 percent increase from last year.
Officials expect hundreds of thousands of refugees to return from Pakistan and Iran this year, even as an average of 1,500 people are newly displaced by fighting every day, said Mark Bowden, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Afghanistan.
"The majority of people returning are very poor ... and have lost a lot," he said on Wednesday in an interview at his office in Kabul.
An increasing number of people in Afghanistan are facing prolonged displacement, Bowden said, creating more challenges for the government, which is already struggling to provide basic services while battling a stubborn insurgency waged by the Taliban and other militant groups.
The 2017 Humanitarian Response Plan, set to be launched by the UN and other organisations on Saturday, calls for $550 million to help about 5.7 million of the most vulnerable people.
