PAKTYA - In south-eastern Afghanistan, United Nations relief agencies have started distributing aid items as part of efforts to reach 1,800 families vulnerable to the dangers associated with the country’s harsh winter.

Earlier this week, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the World Food Programme (WFP) started distributing the items in the province of Paktya province, which is on the border with Pakistan.

The items have been distributed to vulnerable families in the districts of
Chamkani, Jaji, Ahmad Khail, Jaji Ali Khail, Ahmad Aba, Dande Patan and Gardez. Efforts are underway to arrange further distribution to families in need in the province’s remaining districts.

“One thousand families will be given both food and non-food items, while another 800 families will receive assistance in the form of non-food items only,” said the Director of Paktya’s Refugees and Returnees Department, Hazrat Mir Zazai.

UNHCR and WFP are working with the local authorities and the Afghanistan National Disaster Management Authority to identify families in need of the so-called ‘winterization’ assistance.

To each of the recipient families in each of the provinces, WFP is providing three months of food rations, which include 150 kilograms wheat, 18 kilograms of pulses and 11.1 litres of cooking oil. UNHCR is providing packages of non-food items such as blankets, gas-cylinders with four kilograms of liquid gas, sweaters for boys and girls, plastic sheets, soap, solar lamps, sanitary materials, warm sheets, and storage bags.

“We are in a critical condition – we need food items, money and wood to keep ourselves warm in winter. This assistance is not enough, but it still solves a lot our problems, we are thankful to UNHCR,” said Nik Mohammad, a disabled aid recipient who heads a seven-member family in Paktya’s Mirkaza district.

“UNCHR also helped us by providing clean drinking water by digging wells at our locality which supply safe water for hundreds of families who have returned from Pakistan,” said Fatima, a widow, in Gardez district.

The winterization assistance will not only aid vulnerable Afghan families, internally displaced persons (IDPs) and returnee families – it will also be extended to Pakistani refugees who have sought to escape sectarian conflict by moving to Paktya.

Provision of the assistance is expected to start in the neighbouring province of Khost before end of the year.