UN: Two-thirds of Afghans need humanitarian aid

UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations' top envoy for Afghanistan warned on Wednesday that 28 million Afghan people, accounting for two-thirds of the country's population, will need lifesaving humanitarian assistance this year.

The humanitarian need will cost $4.62 billion, the single-largest country appeal ever, Roza Otunbayeva, the UN secretary-general's special representative for Afghanistan, told a Security Council meeting.

Almost half of the Afghan population — 20 million people — are experiencing crisis levels of food insecurity, she said, adding that 6 million people are one step away from famine-like conditions.

"Our humanitarian action is challenged by an increasingly complex access and security environment," she said.

The Taliban retook the Afghan capital, Kabul, in August 2021, far more rapidly than Washington had foreseen, as its forces pulled out. Kabul's fall turned the West's withdrawal into a rout, with Kabul's airport becoming the center of a desperate air evacuation.

In Washington, active service members and veterans provided testimony to Congress on Wednesday about the chaotic withdrawal.

"The withdrawal was a catastrophe in my opinion. And there was an inexcusable lack of accountability," said former Marine sergeant Tyler Vargas-Andrews, who wore a prosthetic arm and scars of his own grave wounds from a bombing.

It was the first of what is expected to be a series of Republican-led hearings examining the handling of the withdrawal by US President Joe Biden's administration.

The majority of witnesses argued before Congress that the fall of Kabul was a US failure with blame touching every presidential administration from George W. Bush to Biden.

However, the US froze nearly $9.5 billion in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank after the Taliban took over Afghanistan, a move some consider "pure looting".

Addressing a Security Council meeting on Wednesday, Geng Shuang, China's deputy permanent representative to the UN, said those assets "belong to the Afghan people and should be used for the Afghan people".