A sudden drop in temperature across the country has left at least 31 people dead in Afghanistan amid the ongoing humanitarian crisis.
People across Afghanistan are not only facing severe food shortages but also a lack of funds to afford fuel to heat their homes as temperatures plummet.
In the past six days, people have died from the cold in Baghlan and Sar-e-Pul province in the north, Kandahar in the south and Nimroz and Badghis in the west.
In the latest incident, on Saturday night, Jan. 14, five people, including four children, died of hypothermia in Badghis province in the west where the temperature had dropped to minus 35 degrees Celsius.
Three people died in Kandahar, according to the Taliban’s provincial directorate of public health. The victims included a child, a man and a woman, who also died from hypothermia. They had no shelter and no food.
The cold wave has also taken its toll on drug addicts. At least 23 drug addicts have died in different cities.
Sources in Baghlan said that 11 drug addicts died from hypothermia in the province over the past five days.
Three of them were laid to rest and the remaining bodies are still in the provincial hospital in Pul-e-Khumri city, a source said.
Meanwhile, two drug addicts died in Sar-e-Pul due to exposure to the cold weather, said Sefatullah Sar-e-Puli, head of the Taliban’s natural disasters management authority in the province.
Moreover, sources said that at least 10 drug addicts have died of hypothermia and lack of shelter in Nimroz province in the west of the country, a province that witnessed heavy sandstorms last week.
Livestock losses
The cold wave has also affected livestock in various areas, especially in northern provinces.
Sources said that at least 4,000 cattle died from exposure in various provinces.
A Taliban official in Jawzjan, Baryalai Ahmadi, said on Sunday that dozens of sheep and goats and two cows died due to the cold weather and lack of feed.
Sources in Badghis, Kandahar, Sar-e-Pul, Faryab and Takhar said that at least 500 sheep have died in each of the provinces due to freezing weather.
A source in Faryab said that four shepherds are missing in bad weather along with 400 sheep.
The cold wave in Afghanistan, especially in the capital city, Kabul, has been unprecedented and record lows reported in the past 22 years, according to residents. Last week’s snowfalls led to the closure of key highways to traffic, including the Salang Pass, the Bamiyan highway and many roads in Badghis.
