KABUL — The deputy executive director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in a visit to Kabul warned that steep funding cuts could have devastating consequences for millions of Afghans, particularly women and children, as the humanitarian crisis in the country deepens.
“These were some of the scenes witnessed up close by Andrew Saberton, Deputy Executive Director of UNFPA, on a mission to assess the impact of the recent steep funding cuts,” the agency said in a statement following Saberton’s visit to Afghanistan.
“I saw and understood the devastating impacts that the massive cuts to UNFPA will have in one of the world’s greatest humanitarian crises,” Mr. Saberton told reporters during a press conference in New York. “A crisis which may be off the radar of the news but remains one of the world’s greatest crises.”
During his visit, Mr. Saberton toured UN-supported healthcare facilities in Kabul, Bamyan and along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. He met with Afghan women and medical staff, many of whom face increasingly severe challenges in accessing basic health services due to a combination of funding reductions and mounting restrictions under Taliban rule.
The U.S. government recently announced it would halt more than $102 million in support for UNFPA operations in Afghanistan, a move aid officials warn will have immediate and dangerous effects. UNFPA has already reduced the number of health centers it supports from 900 to 400, and says over 6.3 million people—most of them women and girls—could lose access to essential reproductive and maternal healthcare.
The cuts come as Afghanistan absorbs tens of thousands of returning refugees, many of them deported from neighboring Iran and Pakistan, further straining an already overstretched system.
Fawzia, a 67-year-old widow in Uruzgan Province, is one of many women who rely on informal labor to survive. She cleans houses to support her children and her ailing husband, despite her own struggle with liver disease. “There is no food in the house, no tea, nothing,” she said.
Her husband, who once worked in Pakistan, now lies bedridden. “We don’t even have water to drink,” he said.
Despite the deteriorating situation, Mr. Saberton emphasized that UNFPA is not leaving Afghanistan.
“UNFPA will be staying to deliver, but we cannot sustain our response without help,” he said. “We need urgent support to keep these services running and to protect the dignity, health and lives of Afghan women and newborns.”
Humanitarian organizations say the funding crisis is especially acute as international attention shifts elsewhere. Mr. Saberton’s warning is the latest in a series of alarms raised by global relief agencies over the consequences of withdrawing support in a country where over half the population depends on humanitarian aid.
