There was the capture of Kabul by the Taliban on August 15, 2021, an event highly publicized across the world. And then slowly, Afghanistan plunged back into relative indifference. However, the country is going through an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. To cope with this, two UN agencies, the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on Tuesday launched a humanitarian aid plan of 4.4 billion dollars. “This is the largest single country funding appeal ever,” said OCHA boss Martin Griffiths. Added to the 623 million obtained by the UN last fall, the overall sum desired by UN humanitarian workers exceeds 5 billion dollars. It represents a quarter of Afghanistan’s GDP. It may seem enormous, but faced with the Herculean humanitarian challenges, it remains largely insufficient.
