h/t Argiris Diamantis
Friday January 01, 2021
Kabul (BNA) More than 300,000 children in war-ravaged Afghanistan face freezing winter conditions that can lead to illness and death without proper winter clothing and heating, a humanitarian organization said Thursday.
The ongoing military conflict in Afghanistan has destroyed many homes and forced thousands of children to shelter in camps for the homeless. There they are at risk of not only hunger and disease, including COVID-19, but also death from freezing temperatures.
Chris Nyamandi, Afghanistan country director for Save the Children, said in a statement Thursday that early snow in northern Afghanistan has impacted children particularly badly.
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Schools are closed until March in the coldest parts of Afghanistan, where the temperature can plummet to as low as minus 27 degrees Celsius (minus 16 degrees Fahrenheit).
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“The situation is bleak for children forced to live in camps in places like Balkh province. It is already very cold in this northern province with overnight temperatures as low as minus ten. But it will get much colder before March,” Nyamandi said. “For thousands of children the Afghan winter is a time of grim survival.”
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At a camp in the northern part of the capital Kabul, there are more than 700 families, the majority of them displaced by violence in their hometowns. They and other families keep warm and cook by burning the garbage that surrounds them.
“It is cold at night, cold in morning, we don’t have wood, we don’t have charcoal,” said 10-year-old Mohammad Dad, who lives at the camp. “We don’t have blankets we make fire out of plastic to keep us warm.”
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