At least 150 people and tens of thousands of cattle have died due to freezing temperatures across Afghanistan, as Afghans reel from a spell of cold weather amid a humanitarian crisis.
\nAccording to international media reports, the country\u2019s Ministry of Disaster Management said on Wednesday that 150 people and 70,000 cattle have died in the past week.
\nFor the last three weeks, many provinces in Afghanistan have been witnessing exceptionally cold weather, with the central region of Ghor recording the lowest reading of -33C (-27F) over the weekend.
\n\u201cThis winter is by far the coldest in recent years,\u201d said Mohammad Nasim Muradi, the head of Afghanistan\u2019s meteorology office.
\n\u201cWe expect the cold wave to continue for another week or more,\u201d Muradi added.
\nIslamic Emirate of Afghanistan spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid offered his \u201cdeepest condolences to the relatives and families\u201d of the victims.
\n\u201cWe are saddened to hear that a number of our citizens have lost their lives due to severe cold in some provinces,\u201d Mujahid wrote on Twitter.
\nHe added that \u201crelevant agencies and officials are instructed to help the affected families as much as possible and to use all their possibilities to prevent more casualties\u201d.
\nImages and videos circulating on social media show roads blocked by heavy snowfall in several central and northern provinces.
\nIt is Afghanistan\u2019s second winter under Taliban rule since United States-led forces withdrew from power in August 2021. The country is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis, with more than half of the population of 38 million facing food shortages. The western sanctions and the Taliban administration\u2019s international isolation have worsened the situation.
\nLast month, many NGOs still working in Afghanistan suspended their operations in protest over a Taliban government order banning women from working with humanitarian groups, except in the health sector. The Taliban has also banned girls from attending schools and universities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At least 150 people and tens of thousands of cattle have died due to freezing temperatures across Afghanistan, as Afghans reel from a spell of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4457,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}