KABUL — The United Nations has appealed for $139 million in emergency funding to support families affected by recent earthquakes in eastern Afghanistan, warning that survivors may not make it through the winter without urgent help.
Roza Otunbayeva, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, visited quake-hit areas and praised the resilience of local communities. She stressed the importance of women in relief delivery and urged donors to act quickly.
“The UN is appealing for $139 million now. Without it, families will not survive the winter,” she said.
The late-August magnitude-6.0 quake struck eastern Afghanistan, killing more than 2,200 people and destroying thousands of homes. Kunar province bore the brunt of the disaster, with entire villages flattened.
Aid agencies say tens of thousands remain in makeshift shelters with little food, clean water, or medicine. Many remote communities are still cut off due to landslides and damaged roads.
The appeal comes at a time of deepening humanitarian crisis and shrinking international support.
Since the Taliban takeover, Afghanistan’s economy has collapsed, development financing has been suspended, and aid budgets have been drastically reduced. More than half of the population already relies on humanitarian assistance, yet UN operations face severe funding shortfalls.
Humanitarian groups warn that without immediate resources to deliver shelter, heating fuel, food, and medical supplies, quake-hit families—already among Afghanistan’s most vulnerable—risk catastrophic conditions as winter approaches.
