Daily Times

A humanitarian disaster that would move hearts of stone! A day after two powerful earthquakes struck western Afghanistan, another just as deadly aftershock erupted; going a long way to spell one of the deadliest natural disasters in the region in the last 20 years.

With the death toll already crossing 1100 and a significant number still trapped under the rubble, the heart-wrenching tragedy cannot be defined in words–however powerful. As many as twelve villages have been reduced to dust. More worrisome remains the sustenance of the survivors who have been left with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

The pain of ordinary men and women forced to languish in a pariah state cannot even be imagined as many Western nations look the other way. After facilitating the transfer of power of a militant entity that had no experience or credentials when it came to governance and whose extremist edicts drew the ire of the rest of the world, war-ravaged Afghanistan has been left to fend for itself.

Women are nowhere in sight, largely due to the gender apartheid, which forced them to stay indoors and perhaps, doomed to suffer from an excruciating slow death. Only last week, the World Bank had warned two two-thirds of Afghan families faced “significant challenges in maintaining livelihoods.”

How can these people be expected to recover from these lethal jolts when they are unable to live through the day in ordinary circumstances? As humanitarian aid groups scramble to send help to survivors of this weekend’s earthquake rescue, there’s no telling how successful their efforts will be. A cursory glance at the long list of bans instituted by Kabul suggests they have no regard whatsoever for the plight of their own people. Strange whims dictate who is/is not allowed to help Afghanistan. The international community would also have to play its due part because, without their contributions, no lasting aid can be offered. *