PRINCETON, N.J. — The United Nations’ top envoy for Afghanistan, Roza Otunbayeva, underscored the urgent humanitarian crisis in the country, saying the most pressing issue is ensuring that Afghans have enough to eat.
“The most important thing right now is to feed the nation,” Otunbayeva said during a talk at Princeton University’s Robertson Hall on Thursday.
She described conditions for women in Afghanistan as “very, very bad,” citing high birth rates alongside soaring maternal and child mortality.
“The mortality of children and women is extremely high,” she said.
Otunbayeva, who serves as the U.N.’s special representative for Afghanistan, also criticized restrictive Taliban policies, including recent directives on home construction that mandate windows be designed to prevent outsiders from seeing women inside.
“We are trying to mobilize the entire donor community to provide seeds to farmers, not to the Taliban,” she said, as reported by The Daily Princetonian. “There is a lack of everything.”
She acknowledged that delivering humanitarian aid has become increasingly difficult under Taliban rule, particularly due to the group’s restrictive policies on women and former government officials.
“It is not just because Trump came to power,” she said, referencing shifting global political dynamics, “but also because the Taliban exercises such a harsh policy toward women and former politicians.”
Otunbayeva also pointed to another mounting challenge: the return of Afghan migrants from Pakistan, many of whom arrive with no means of survival.
“For the economy of Afghanistan, there are too many returnees,” she said. “The country is already full of jobless people, and now the poorest of the poor are coming back. They don’t have places to live, they don’t have jobs, they can’t earn money.”
Afghanistan’s geographical position, she noted, has long made it a critical hub for regional trade, but its current crisis has left it increasingly isolated.
