Providing Health & Legal Support to Refugees in Takhar Province, Afghanistan

It is since a year that our project titled ‘’ Providing Health & Legal Support to Refugees in Takhar Province, Afghanistan’’ is working in Takhar province for well-being of the refugees lives, with an especial on children in this area. The project is funded and implemented with special cooperation of FONS MALLORQUI, and it was part of the project aim to provide support to refugee children under serious risk of malnutrition and need for health support. As per the UN statistics, 24.4 million of Afghans will be plunged into poverty by mid of 2022 includes 12.9 million children. And we are very concerned that situation can be worse than imagined and number of people needs food and health support jumped to millions in just a matter of few months, a course of time which have been exposed to extreme political transformations in the country.

Millions of people are internally displaced within Afghanistan, without access to food or drinking water and shelter, the main cause of these displacements were the internal wars and urge of poverty in the countryside while each day the water level drops quickly down and the coming years are expected to be more difficult for today’s government to respond to the needs of millions of people which as per UN statistics, by mid of 2022 almost 97% of the country’s population are going to live under poverty line. The humanitarian situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated significantly with the recent political and socioeconomic developments. Essential services are on the brink of collapse, exacerbating the needs of an already vulnerable population is yet to be discussed.

Under this project, our team observed the situation of the people in Takhar province and witnessed the sad fact of significant increase in level of poverty day by day in this province. HAWCA team has been stationed in Takhar province and provided urgent support to the vulnerable people in this province. We have distributed food packages for hundreds of children who were under serious risk of malnutrition and we believe this will effect children the most negative way and hunger is not bearable. Lack of nutrition is now widely effecting each Afghan child and this is a crucial fact unfortunately that the number of children needs basic nutrition increases each day as the country’s whole economic system is at merge of falling down. No investment in the country and growing immigration rate of people who are leaving this country as they lost their hope for this country with closure of businesses, one after another has caused millions of people to lose their jobs or are jobless.

Many children we visited for support having just one-time meal which is mostly boiled corn, these children lost their weight to a concerning level, and we found that almost 96% of these children were suffering acute hunger. Many of these children complained about their health issues and some needed serious medical attention. Children explained that they are only having one-time meal barely in a day!

Children are considered the most vulnerable part of society and the recent political transformation, economic failure of the country, shockingly increase rate of domestic violence, especially while the under-age marriage threats millions of young girls remained in homes with closed doors effected children widely as well. HAWCA feels most responsible and very concerned for the situation of children and women in the country, and aims to provide assistance with the provision of education, food, health and legal support of the children in the most difficult times of Afghanistan yet.