Afghanistan | Three Years on From August 2021

• Afghanistan

Three years on from August 2021, Afghanistan remains an under-addressed and underfunded crisis

Over the last three years, Afghanistan has plunged into a major economic crisis.

• 23.7 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance
• 12.4 million people are food insecure
• Almost half of the population – about 48% – live below the poverty line

Source: OCHA

The population is plagued by food insecurity, caused by the economic crisis and the effects of climate change such as droughts, hail storms, floods, as well as increasingly frequent earthquakes that destroy the crops of those that rely on agriculture.

The most vulnerable people in the country remain women and children.

Security Conditions

EMERGENCY have been in Afghanistan since 1999: 25 years later, although the conflict in the has formally concluded, we continue to receive war casualties.

2024 began with multiple attacks in Kabul in January.

The latest explosion occurred in the Dasht-e-Barchi neighbourhood on Sunday 11 August. After the attack, our Kabul Surgical Centre received eight wounded patients, seven of whom were admitted to the operating theatre, including one in a particularly serious condition. Later that day, another injured person voluntarily came to the hospital to be examined, bringing the total received following the attack to nine.

🔴 #Afghanistan: a magnetic bomb placed under a bus exploded in the Dasht-e-Barchi area in #Kabul. 8 victims – 3 of them women – received at our Surgical Centre. 7 are in need of surgery. 1 patient in particular is in a serious condition.

— EMERGENCY NGO (@emergency_ngo) August 11, 2024

Afghanistan’s needs today: 70% of operations in Kabul are for war wounds

In the first six months of 2024, about 70% of the patients operated on in our hospital in the capital are considered war-wounded: patients suffering from stab, gunshot, shrapnel and mine wounds caused, for the most part, by family disputes, crime, explosive attacks and shootings. These are the consequences of four decades of war, violence and a lack of human rights.

However, many new health needs have also emerged: victims of road accidents, pregnant women in a very serious condition, diseases that can be treated without the need for surgery with good pre-operative diagnostics.

In 2024, five of our First Aid Posts, which for many years focused on urgently stabilising and referring war-wounded patients, were converted into Primary Healthcare Centres, where doctors and nurses respond to the wider health needs of the population and continue to provide a referral service to our Surgical Centres.

This is a vital service, especially in remote and rural areas, where 70% of the Afghan population live and reaching a hospital can be very complicated. Local hospitals often lack sufficient doctors or medicines, forcing many to turn to the private sector. By offering all services free of charge at EMERGENCY facilities, Afghans do not have to travel to inadequate hospitals or go into debt to pay for treatment.

Providing opportunities for local colleagues to train new skills has formed an integral part of the transformation of these facilities.

36 Afghan residents are trainees in EMERGENCY’s Residency Programmes in Afghanistan, postgraduate specialisation courses recognised by the Ministry of Health and pertaining to the specialisations of surgery and traumatology, gynaecology and obstetrics, paediatrics and anaesthesia.

In the first six months of 2024, EMERGENCY’s hospitals and facilities in Afghanistan:

• carried out more than 67,000 outpatient visits in Kabul, Lashkar-Gah and Anabah
• performed more than 7,000 surgeries
• delivered more than 3,500 babies safely at the Anabah Maternity Centre

The future of Afghanistan

The Afghan population has lived through four decades of war, some generations have never seen a day of peace in their lives. Today, we must try to make life better for Afghans: it is important to continue to invest in the people, colleagues and patients, who play a key role in their communities.