World Food Programme (WFP) in Afghanistan is seeking Iran’s help to transport India’s humanitarian aid to Afghanistan from Chabahar port through the Khwaf-Herat railway, a 225 km-long cross-border railway between Iran and Afghanistan.
The Iranian embassy in Kabul said in a tweet Monday that Hsiao-Wei Lee, WFP Country Director in Afghanistan, met with the Iranian Deputy Ambassador Hossein Mortazavi in Kabul to discuss this cooperation.
In April, India signed an agreement with the WFP, pledging 10,000 metric tons of wheat along with medicines to Afghanistan through the transit route over Pakistan amid a worsening food crisis across Afghanistan.
This comes at a time when last year India’s humanitarian aid to Afghanistan was transferred through Pakistan.
According to a recent report by Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), the food situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated significantly since 2021, with nearly 19 million Afghans had experienced high levels of acute food insecurity between September and October 2021. In 2022, this number most likely climbed to almost 23 million.