Please refer to the attached file.
Highlights
• With winter looming, during which temperatures can drop to a low of -12° Celsius, an estimated 12.1 million people need urgent assistance.
• Drought continues to severely affect Afghanistan. UNICEF provided water-trucking to 205,973 people affected by drought in 183 communities in Nimroz and Balkh provinces.
• On the 19th of September, the acting Minister of Education announced the opening of grades 7 to 12 (secondary education) for boys and male teachers only, raising questions with regards to the future of girls’ education across all grades. Fortunately, in some provinces, secondary education opened for both boys and girls. UNICEF continues its advocacy to ensure that all boys and girls, across all grades, have access to education
• Detention, recruitment and use of children in armed groups have, reportedly, increased. The lack of formal reporting mechanisms and of a designated authority for child protection make it challenging to address and respond to violations.
Situation Overview & Humanitarian Needs
Since the change of power, due to funding gaps, disruptions in services run by the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) and Ministry of Education (MoE) are commonplace. Teacher and health worker salaries are unpaid for months and life-saving activities are severely crippled. Drought continues to affect over 80 per cent of the country and, with ongoing banking challenges and reduced access to money, malnutrition and food insecurity is on the rise. Disease outbreaks are also increasing with number of measles cases rising significantly, reaching 60,000(23,963 confirmed cases reported by WHO) during the reporting period. Meanwhile acute watery diarrhoea (AWD) cases (including lab confirmed cases of cholera) have surpassed 900 and are rapidly propagating among the population in Kabul city and surrounding districts, facilitated by the decreased access to safe water and deteriorating hygiene conditions in the capital.
In addition to ongoing humanitarian needs, the daily COVID-19 messaging from the MoPH on prevention has decreased and therefore COVID-19 cases remain high with dozens of people in Afghanistan hospitalized. Disruptions in critical COVID-19 vaccination services has left 1.8 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines unused and at risk of expiry.
During the reporting period, grades 7 to 12 reopened on the 19th of September for only boys and male teachers. While secondary school has opened for girls as well in some locations, the lack of formal announcement of reopening of school for girls in secondary school limits access to education for millions of girls and access to work for hundreds of female teachers. There is a critical need to ensure schools and health facilities are resourced to prevent collapse and all populations have access to life-saving services.