Coinciding with Eid al-Adha, the Taliban has announced that it has collected donations from residents of Paktia province to aid the people of Gaza. The Taliban police command in the province said 821,000 Afghanis had been raised so far.
The Taliban command in Paktia stated that the campaign to collect aid for the “oppressed and displaced people” of Gaza would continue. In a statement, it said: “The faithful people of Afghanistan consider themselves partners in the sorrow and grief of the oppressed people of Gaza.”
According to the Taliban, similar financial and humanitarian donations for Gaza have been collected in other parts of Afghanistan. However, the group did not clarify the mechanism or process for collecting and distributing the aid.
Several business owners in various provinces have previously reported that armed Taliban fighters forcibly collected money from them under the pretext of helping Gaza.
The Taliban’s fundraising efforts come as international organisations warn of a worsening hunger crisis in Afghanistan.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) announced on Thursday that about 20 percent of Afghan children approximately five million are facing crisis or emergency levels of food insecurity.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has reported that nearly 23 million Afghans are in need of humanitarian assistance. According to the agency, one in three Afghans does not know where their next meal will come from.
Meanwhile, several Islamic countries, marking Eid al-Adha, have announced that they will send sacrificial meat to support vulnerable people in Afghanistan. According to international organisations, since the Taliban took power nearly four years ago, poverty, unemployment and hunger have steadily worsened across the country.
