The UN aid agency in Afghanistan has been compelled to suspend work after Pakistan escalated its offensive against the neighbouring country.
The renewed conflict between the two nations, marked by airstrikes and gunfights along the border, entered the seventh day on Thursday.
The World Food Programme warned that the conflict was worsening Afghanistan’s already dire humanitarian crisis, particularly in the border regions. The US-Israeli war against Iran was set to make matters worse.
The suspension of emergency food aid distribution would affect nearly 160,000 people, the UN agency said, adding that airstrikes and ground clashes had impacted 46 districts across Nuristan, Laghman, Kunar, Nangarhar, Paktika, Paktya, Khost, Kandahar, Helmand, and Zabul provinces.
“WFP has been forced to temporarily suspend emergency, social protection, school feeding and livelihood activities,” the agency said.
At least four of the affected provinces were facing critical levels of malnutrition due to the ongoing humanitarian crisis, it added, while more than half of the districts caught in the clashes were seeing “emergency levels of hunger”.
“Communities in mountainous Kunar and Nangarhar provinces, already among the most vulnerable, were the hardest-hit by last year’s earthquake, losing family members, homes and livelihoods,” WFP country director John Aylieff said. “Today, those very same communities are once again on the front line, now facing the escalation of conflict with Pakistan.”
The simmering conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan erupted again last week after Pakistan conducted airstrikes across the border on what it claimed were terrorist facilities.
Afghanistan retaliated by engaging Pakistani forces along the border. Islamabad subsequently declared an “open war” on the neighbouring country, alarming the international community.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said at least 42 civilians had been killed and 104 wounded in the violence since 26 February.
Islamabad claimed its troops had killed more than 430 Afghan soldiers but did not comment on the civilian casualties alleged by Kabul.
Pakistan army chief Asim Munir on Wednesday suggested peace with Afghanistan was contingent on the Taliban severing ties with insurgents targeting Pakistan, warning that Islamabad would take "all necessary measures" against threats emanating from across the border.
“Peace could only prevail between both sides if the Afghan Taliban renounced their support for terrorism and terrorist organisations," he said.
The use of Afghan territory by insurgents to launch attacks inside Pakistan was “unacceptable”, he said.
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