UK must set out strategy to support starving Afghans: Lammy

KABUL (Pajhwok): UK’s shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, has asked the British government to urgently set out a comprehensive strategy for engaging with Afghanistan to support the millions of civilians who are starving.

According to The Guardian, Lammy flown to Kabul to see at first-hand the scale of the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover.

Lammy is the first senior British politician to visit the country since the west’s chaotic pullout last August. He is being accompanied on his visit by Preet Gill, the shadow minister for international development.

Lammy regards his visit as one way of trying to raise the profile of the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, where more than half the population are dependent on some form of aid, according to the UNHCR.

Lammy said: “The government downgraded the UK’s international reputation and made the whole world less safe with its calamitous handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan last summer. Today millions of Afghanistan’s civilians are suffering from starvation, with some even forced to sell body parts to feed their families.

“The UK government’s woeful lack of leadership that was so visible last year is continuing as it ignores the humanitarian catastrophe. Ministers must urgently set out a comprehensive strategy for engaging with Afghanistan to support the millions of civilians who are starving, restore the 0.7% commitment to international aid, and lead the world by convening an emergency global food summit with the UN.”

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