Month: June 2022

Russia moved closer Sunday to defaulting on international debt payments for the first time in a century.

Interest payments totaling $100 million on two bonds were originally due May 27, but carried a 30-day grace period.

Russia has struggled to make such payments due to restrictions on its financial activities and sanctions imposed in response to its invasion of Ukraine in February.

Russia’s attack on Ukraine continued on Sunday, when Russian forces launched new missile attacks on Ukraine’s two biggest cities, the capital of Kyiv and Kharkiv.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said at least two apartment buildings in the city were hit, leaving at least one person dead, and four others injured.

Russia ramped up its use of cruise missiles, striking targets across northwestern Ukraine. Air raid sirens blared in several cities.

“It’s more of their barbarism,” U.S. President Joe Biden said of the Russian strike on Kyiv as he appeared at a G-7 welcoming ceremony with Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a key focus of the summit. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is due to address the meeting Monday.

Biden said that the United States and the other G-7 economies will ban the import of Russian gold, the latest sanction imposed on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine, now in its fifth month.

The leaders of the G-7 nations — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States — are trying to maintain unity against Russia, even with the war’s growing toll on the global economy, including in the U.S., which is confronting a four-decade high surge in consumer prices.

The new attack on Kyiv came a day after the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk, a major victory for Russia after weeks of fierce fighting.

Russia now controls virtually all of the Luhansk province, part of the eastern Donbas region that Moscow is trying to take over, one of its major war aims.

Ukraine said Russian forces had fully occupied Lysychansk, a neighboring city of Sievierodonetsk, in the eastern Luhansk region. Moscow claimed it had encircled about 2,000 Ukrainian troops in the area.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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WNBA Star Brittney Griner Ordered to Trial Friday in Russia

Shackled and looking wary, WNBA star Brittney Griner was ordered to stand trial Friday by a court near Moscow on cannabis possession charges, about 4 1/2 months after her arrest at an airport while returning to play for a Russian team.

The Phoenix Mercury center and two-time U.S. Olympic gold medalist also was ordered to remain in custody for the duration of her criminal trial. Griner could face 10 years in prison if convicted on charges of large-scale transportation of drugs. Fewer than 1% of defendants in Russian criminal cases are acquitted, and unlike in the U.S., acquittals can be overturned.

At Monday’s closed-door preliminary hearing at the court in the Moscow suburb of Khimki, Griner’s detention was extended for another six months. Photos obtained by The Associated Press showed the 31-year-old in handcuffs and looking straight ahead, unlike a previous court appearance where she kept her head down and covered with a hood.

Her detention and trial come at an extraordinarily low point in Moscow-Washington relations. She was arrested at Sheremetyevo Airport less than a week before Russia sent troops into Ukraine, which aggravated already-high tensions with sweeping sanctions by the United States and Russia’s denunciation of U.S. weapon supplies to Ukraine.

Amid the tensions, Griner’s supporters had taken a low profile in hopes of a quiet resolution, until May, when the State Department reclassified her as wrongfully detained and shifted oversight of her case to its special presidential envoy for hostage affairs — effectively the U.S. government’s chief negotiator.

Griner’s wife, Cherelle, urged President Joe Biden in May to secure her release, calling her “a political pawn.”

Her supporters have encouraged a prisoner swap like the one in April that brought home Marine veteran Trevor Reed in exchange for a Russian pilot convicted of drug trafficking conspiracy.

Russian news media have repeatedly raised speculation that she could be swapped for Russian arms trader Viktor Bout, nicknamed “The Merchant of Death,” who is serving a 25-year sentence on conviction of conspiracy to kill U.S. citizens and providing aid to a terrorist organization.

Russia has agitated for Bout’s release for years. But the discrepancy between Griner’s case — she allegedly was found in possession of vape cartridges containing cannabis oil — and Bout’s global dealings in deadly weapons could make such a swap unpalatable to the U.S.

Others have suggested that she could be traded in tandem with Paul Whelan, a former Marine and security director serving a 16-year sentence on an espionage conviction that the United States has repeatedly described as a set-up.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, asked Sunday on CNN whether a joint swap of Griner and Whelan for Bout was being considered, sidestepped the question.

“As a general proposition … I have got no higher priority than making sure that Americans who are being illegally detained in one way or another around the world come home,” he said. But “I can’t comment in any detail on what we’re doing, except to say this is an absolute priority.”

Any swap would apparently require Griner to first be convicted and sentenced, then apply for a presidential pardon, Maria Yarmush, a lawyer specializing in international civil affairs, told Kremlin-funded TV channel RT.
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South Africa Police Investigating Deaths of 21 Teenagers in Bar

South African authorities say the owner of a bar where at least 17 teenagers were found dead and four others died while receiving medical care is expected to face charges. Police investigating the mysterious deaths in Eastern Cape province say they have not ruled out the possibility the teenagers were poisoned.

South African police say they are investigating and awaiting autopsy results after the teenagers’ bodies were found at a bar early Sunday morning with no visible cause of death.

Brigadier Thembinkosi Kinana is a police spokesman.

“Whilst we understand the urgency of this matter and the anxiety of the public, in particular the affected families who want answers. We urge that we allow sufficient time for our detectives to finalize those investigations. I must also add that we have not made any arrests at this stage,” he said.

South African police say the owner is expected to face charges and have not ruled out the possibility that the teenagers were poisoned.

Spokesman Kinana said half-a-dozen of the bodies were not immediately claimed.

“We are making an appeal to parents or relatives who may have not seen their children since the past weekend to please make time to make inquiries. We are also calling upon parents whose children who may have survived the tavern incident but are still feeling sick to please visit hospitals and clinics for medical check-ups,” he said.

Police were called to East London’s Enyobeni Tavern in Eastern Cape province, where local media reported the bodies were found slumped on the floor and tables.

The tavern’s owner, Siyakhangela Ndevu, told AFP news agency that patrons had tried to force their way into the bar despite it already being packed.

But safety authorities were quick to rule out a stampede because of the lack of injuries on the bodies, some as young as 13 years old.

Eighteen is the legal drinking age in South Africa.

Lucky Ntimane is Convenor of South Africa’s National Liquor Traders Council.

“The owner had workers working there, he had bouncers, they could’ve seen, easily seen that there were minors in that establishment. But this was allowed to happen, the owner put the profits before the people. He should never ever trade in alcohol ever in his life. The license should be revoked with immediate effect,” he said.

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa expressed condolences for the families through his spokesman Vincent Magwenya.

“While the president awaits more information on the incident, his thoughts are with the families who have lost children. The president is however also concerned about the reported circumstances under which such young people were gathered at a venue which on the face of it should be off limits to people under the age of 18. The president expects the law to take its course following investigations into the tragedy,” he said.

He added that the deaths were even more tragic as they happened during South Africa’s youth month.

Youth month developed from the June 16 National Youth Day when South Africa reflects on the massacre of students during the 1976 Soweto Uprising against apartheid.

Some of the dead were also students celebrating the end of mid-year exams.
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HRW: Armed Groups Operate in English-Speaking Cameroon Without Fear

The advocacy group Human Rights Watch is calling on separatist leaders in Cameroon to rein in groups who it says have committed a number of atrocities.

Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior central Africa researcher for HRW, said the groups are operating “with no apparent fear of being held to account by either their own leaders of Cameroonian law enforcement.”

HRW said that since January separatist groups have killed at least seven people, raped a girl in her early teens, burned two schools and kidnapped up to 82 people.

Allegrozzi urged the leaders of the armed groups to “immediately instruct their fighters to stop abusing civilians and hand over abusive fighters for prosecution.”

Armed groups have been fighting since 2017 to separate western Cameroon, where most people speak English, from the rest of the country and its French-speaking majority.

Government forces have also been accused of human rights violations during the conflict, with abuses that include rape, torture, and killings.

“Cameroon’s regional and international partners should intensify calls on the Cameroonian government for accountability, and better protection of civilians,” Allegrozzi said.
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Nigeria’s Zamfara State to Issue Gun Licenses to Individuals

Authorities in Nigeria’s Zamfara state said they will begin granting gun licenses to residents. The rare move will allow individuals to carry guns so that they can defend themselves against gunmen and rebels in the troubled West African country’s northern region.

Armed gangs that rob and kidnap for ransom are common in the area.

Gunmen recently killed eight people and kidnapped nearly 40 in two churches in Kaduna.

Nigeria’s security forces are stretched thin with the violent attacks and a ten-year war against Islamist rebels.

Ibrahim Dosara, the Zamfara information commissioner, said in a statement that 500 licenses will be distributed to people “who qualify and are wishing to obtain such guns to defend themselves.”

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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The Bolsheviks to Putin: A History of Russian Defaults

06/27/2022 ITasLeave a comment

In 1918, Soviet revolutionary Leon Trotsky told Western creditors aghast at the Bolsheviks’ repudiation of Russia’s external debt: “Gentlemen, you were warned.”

He reminded them that the dismissal of Tsarist-era debt had been a key manifesto of the failed uprising in 1905. More than a century later, Russia stands on the brink of another default but this time there was no warning.

Few expected the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine to elicit such a ferocious response from the West, which has all but severed Russia from global financial and payment systems.

These are Russia’s major debt events over the past century:

1918: Repudiation

Just before the 1917 revolution, Russia was the world’s largest net international debtor, having borrowed heavily to finance industrialization and railways.

But seeing the Tsarist industrialization drive as failing the working class, the Bolsheviks repudiated all foreign debt.

“They said ‘we are not paying and even if we could, we wouldn’t pay.’ And that was a political statement,” said Hassan Malik, senior sovereign analyst at Loomis Sayles and the author of the book “Bankers and Bolsheviks: International Finance and the Russian Revolution.”

Despite Trotsky’s reminder, the default shocked the world, especially France, whose banks and citizens suffered massive losses.

“Investors didn’t take it seriously because they thought it would be so self-harmful,” Malik said, estimating the debt to be worth at least $500 billion at 2020 prices and possibly more.

It took until the mid-1980s for Moscow to recognize some of that debt.

1991: USSR to Russia

Following the break-up of the USSR in 1991, Russia stopped servicing part of the overseas debt it inherited from former Soviet states.

Andrey Vavilov, Russia’s deputy finance minister between 1994 and 1997, said the Russian Federation held around $105 billion in Soviet-era debt at the end of 1992, with its own debt amounting to $2.8 billion.

For accepting the inherited debt, the Paris Club recognized Russia as a creditor nation, Vavilov wrote in his book “The Russian Public Debt and Financial Meltdowns.” And as Russia agreed with the group of nations to restructure $28 billion in debt in 1996, it was allowed to shift major Soviet-era debt payments to the next decade.

But with a financial crisis around the corner, it would take until 2017 to clear the Communist-era arrears.

1998: Rouble debt default

By 1997, crashing oil prices slashed Russian export revenues. External debt, which stood near 50% of GDP in 1995, had swelled by 1998 to 77%, according to Vavilov, who blamed hefty IMF/World Bank loans for contributing to the pile.

Russia raised very little tax revenue and relied on short-term Treasury bills known as GKO to cover expenditure. But it found it harder and harder to roll these over and was soon spending ever-increasing amounts to defend the rouble.

“The more the government insisted that it would stand by the currency and repay its debts, the more investors concluded it was time to sell,” said Chris Miller in his book “Putinomics: Power and Money in Resurgent Russia.”

A month before the default, the IMF put together a $22.6 billion aid package, but “the market was expecting the announcement of an additional $20 billion,” Martin Gilman, the IMF representative in Moscow at the time, wrote in his book “No Precedent, No Plan: Inside Russia’s 1998 Default.”

On Aug. 17, 1998, Russia threw in the towel, devaluing the rouble, announcing it could no longer pay rouble debt and introducing a three-month moratorium on some external debt.

Russian banks that had invested heavily in T-bills and had extensive foreign currency exposure soon went under.

2022: A forced default

Through dire financial straits in 1998, Moscow made sure to continue Eurobond payments. Now it has plenty of cash but may not dodge default.

To sidestep sanctions, the Kremlin is suggesting foreign creditors open Russian bank accounts to receive payments in alternative currencies to the dollar.

Non-U.S. investors can in theory agree, but U.S. bondholders cannot, after a U.S. Treasury license allowing them to accept Russian payments expired in May.

Miller, author of “Putinomics,” said Russia would fight tooth and nail to dodge a Eurobond default.

“The officials on the central bank and the finance ministry have built their careers on restabilizing Russia as a creditor that can be trusted in international markets,” he said.

“It’s built into their identity to make sure a default doesn’t happen again.”

Reporting by Jorgelina do Rosario, editing by Sujata Rao and Nick Macfie
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G-7 Heightening Russia Sanctions for Ukraine War

The United States announced Monday new sanctions it and other G-7 countries are enacting against Russia in response to its war in Ukraine, including measures to cut off Russia from materials and services needed by Russia’s industrial and technology sectors.

The White House said the United States will commit $7.5 billion as part of a G-7 effort to help Ukraine cover its short-term budget needs, and that the governments are making “an unprecedented, long-term security commitment to providing Ukraine with financial, humanitarian, military and diplomatic support as long as it takes.”

The announcement came as G-7 leaders met in Germany where they awaited an address by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Additional specific U.S. sanctions include blocks on Russian state-owned defense enterprises and defense research organizations, limiting Russia’s ability to replenish equipment it has lost in the war, and prohibitions on gold imports into the United States.

Russian troops carried out shelling in the eastern city of Lysychansk on Monday, working to try to capture the last remaining Ukrainian stronghold in Luhansk province after seizing control of neighboring Sievierodonetsk.

Luhansk Governor Serhiy Haidai said the damage to Lysychansk has be “catastrophic.”

Haidai urged the remaining civilians to evacuate the city that was home to 100,000 people before Russia launched its invasion in late February.

Russia now controls virtually all of Luhansk province, part of the eastern Donbas region that Moscow is trying to take over, one of its major war aims.

Russian forces on Sunday launched new missile attacks against Ukraine’s two biggest cities, the capital of Kyiv and Kharkiv.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said at least two apartment buildings in the city were hit, leaving at least one person dead, and four others injured.

Russia ramped up its use of cruise missiles, striking targets across northwestern Ukraine. Air raid sirens blared in several cities.

“It’s more of their barbarism,” U.S. President Joe Biden said of the Russian strike on Kyiv.

Default

Russia moved closer Sunday to defaulting on international debt payments for the first time in a century.

Interest payments totaling $100 million on two bonds were originally due May 27, but carried a 30-day grace period.

Russia has struggled to make such payments due to restrictions on its financial activities related to sanctions imposed in response to its invasion of Ukraine that began in late February.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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Survivors Recount Mali’s Deadliest Attack Since Coup

Moussa Tolofidie didn’t think twice when nearly 100 jihadis on motorbikes gathered in his village in central Mali last week.

A peace agreement signed last year between some armed groups and the community in the Bankass area had largely held, even if the gunmen would sometimes enter the town to preach Shariah to the villagers. But on this Sunday in June, everything changed — the jihadis began killing people.

“They started with an old man about 100 years old … then the sounds of the weapons began to intensify around me and then at one moment I heard a bullet whistling behind my ear. I felt the earth spinning, I lost consciousness and fell to the ground,” Tolofidie, a 28-year-old farmer told The Associated Press by phone Friday in Mopti town, where he was receiving medical care.

“When I woke up it was dark, around midnight,” he said. “There were bodies of other people on top of me. I smelled blood and smelled burnt things and heard the sounds of some people still moaning.”

Two days of attacks

At least 132 people were killed in several villages in the Bankass area of central Mali during two days of attacks last weekend, according to the government, which blames the Group to Support Islam and Muslims jihadi rebels linked to al-Qaida.

The attack — the deadliest since mutinous soldiers toppled President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita nearly two years ago — shows that Islamic extremist violence is spreading from Mali’s north to more central areas, analysts have said.

The conflict-riddled country has been battling extremist violence for a decade since jihadis seized control of key northern cities in 2012 and tried to take over the capital. They were pushed back by a French-led military operation the following year but have since regained ground.

The Associated Press spoke to several survivors on Friday who had sought treatment at a hospital in Mopti and were from the villages of Diallassagou, Dianweli and Dessagou. People described hearing gunfire and jihadis shouting, “Allahu akbar,” Arabic for “God is great,” as they ran into the forest to save their lives.

Mali’s government blamed the attacks on the Group to Support Islam and Muslims, or JNIM, which is backed by al-Qaida, although the group denied responsibility in a statement on Friday.

UN says violence has displaced population

The United States and France condemned the attacks and the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali (MINUSMA) issued a statement on Twitter saying the violence has caused casualties and displaced the population.

Conflict analysts say the fact that the attacks happened in an area where local peace agreements were signed could signify the end of the fragile accords.

“The resurgence of tension is perhaps linked to the expiration of these local agreements but also can be linked to the intensification of military operations by the defense forces,” said Baba Dakono, director of the Citizen Observatory on Governance and Security, a local civil society group.

Ene Damango, a mechanic from Dialassagou, fled his village when the shooting started, but he said his uncle was shot in the leg and severely wounded.

“When I returned to the village. I discovered the carnage.”
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Ukraine War Could Boost Illegal Drug Production, says UN

The war in Ukraine could allow illegal drug production to flourish, while the opium market’s future hinges on the fate of crisis-wracked Afghanistan, the United Nations warned Monday.

Previous experience from the Middle East and Southeast Asia suggests conflict zones can act as a “magnet” for making synthetic drugs, which can be manufactured anywhere, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in its annual report. “This effect may be greater when the conflict area is near large consumer markets.”

The UNODC said the number of dismantled amphetamine laboratories in Ukraine rose from 17 in 2019 to 79 in 2020, the highest number of seized laboratories reported in any country in 2020.

Ukraine’s capacity to produce synthetic drugs could grow as the war continues, it added.

“You don’t have police going around and stopping laboratories” in conflict zones, UNODC expert Angela Me told AFP.

The report also noted that conflict could shift and disrupt drug trafficking routes, with suggestions that trafficking in Ukraine has fallen since early 2022.

The situation in Afghanistan — which produced 86% of the world’s opium in 2021 — will shape the development of the opiate market, the U.N. report added.

It said the country’s humanitarian crisis could incentivize illegal opium poppy cultivation, even after the Taliban authorities banned the practice in April.

“Changes in opium production in Afghanistan will have implications for opiate markets in virtually all regions of the world,” the U.N. said.

An estimated 284 million people used a drug in 2021, or one in every 18 people worldwide aged between 15 and 64, the report found.

The figure was 26% higher than in 2010, with population growth only partially accounting for the change.

Cocaine production climbed to a new record in 2020 at 1,982 tons.

Although most drug consumers were men, Me said women heavily used amphetamine type stimulants and were under-represented in treatment.

“For them, it’s a double stigma. Going there is also to expose themselves,” she told AFP. “We have put a recommendation on safety and how to ensure that the centers have the possibility to welcome children.”

The UNODC report was based on information gathered from member states, its own sources, and analyzing institutional reports, the media and open-source material.
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Erdogan to Meet With Leaders of Sweden, Finland Before NATO Summit in 4-Way Talks

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan will attend a round of talks with the leaders of Sweden and Finland, as well as NATO on Tuesday ahead of the summit in Madrid, Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said Sunday.

Finland and Sweden applied for NATO membership in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But the bids have faced opposition from Turkey, which has been angered by what it says is Helsinki and Stockholm’s support for Kurdish militants and arms embargoes on Ankara.

Speaking to broadcaster Haberturk, Kalin said he and Deputy Foreign Minister Sedat Onal would also attend a round of talks with Swedish and Finnish delegations in Brussels on Monday.

“There will be a four-way summit in Madrid at the leader level in Madrid upon the request of the NATO secretary-general with the attendance of our president,” he said.

Kalin said Erdogan attending the talks with Sweden, Finland and NATO on Tuesday “does not mean we will take a step back from our position.”

“We have brought negotiations to a certain point. It is not possible for us to take a step back here,” he also said of the upcoming talks.

Kalin said Turkey and the Nordic countries had largely agreed on issues and would be in a better position in Madrid— if they could agree on them during talks Monday.
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2 Police Officers Killed in North Benin Attack

06/26/2022 ITafLeave a comment

Two police officers were killed and one wounded in an attack on a police station in northwest Benin on Sunday, police sources said, the latest in a string of deadly assaults in an area affected by a spillover of militant activity in neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger.

Suspected jihadists descended on the Dassari police station at around 2 a.m. and opened fire, killing two officers before they were pushed back, said one police officer who did not wish to be named.

“Our forces were able to resist. Unfortunately, there were two dead in our ranks,” the police officer told Reuters.

Two “terrorists” were also killed and several others wounded, he added.

A second unnamed police source confirmed the assault and the death toll.

Dassari is a town around 600 km (373 miles) northwest of Benin’s largest city Cotonou, near the border with Burkina Faso.

It is around 250 km from a police station in the commune of Karimana, near the border with Niger, that was raided by armed assailants on April 26, leaving at least one dead and several wounded.

Benin’s army has not officially communicated on Sunday’s attack.

Its spokesman Didier Ahouanvoedo referred Reuters to the police.

“The attack this early morning once again spread panic among the local population,” said a local official in Dassari, who did not wish to be named for safety reasons.

“The situation is now under control thanks to reinforcements from the army,” he added.

Groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State that spread to northern Benin from West Africa’s Sahel region have escalated attacks in recent weeks.

Five soldiers were killed in April when an army convoy struck an improvised explosive device planted in the northern Pendjari National Park.
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Italian Nun Slain in Haiti Hailed by Pope as Martyr

Pope Francis on Sunday hailed as a martyr an Italian missionary nun slain in Haiti, where she cared for poor children.

The diocese of Milan says Sister Luisa Dell’Orto, 64, was slain “during an armed aggression, probably with the aim of robbery,” in Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital.

The Vatican’s official media said Dell’Orto, gravely wounded, was taken to a hospital, where she died soon after.

Francis in remarks to the public in St. Peter’s Square expressed his closeness to the nun’s family members and noted she had lived there for some 20 years, dedicating herself above all to helping poor children who lived on the street.

“I entrust her soul to God, and I pray for the Haitian people, especially the little ones, so they can have a more serene future, without misery and without violence, ” Francis said.

Dell’Orto “gave her life to others, until the point of martyrdom,” the pontiff said.

The nun, who was born in Lombardy, northern Italy, had run a home for children in a very poor suburb of Port-au-Prince, the Milan diocese said.

Haiti, a Caribbean country, is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.
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Russia’s Putin to Make First Foreign Trip Since Launching Ukraine War

Vladimir Putin will visit two small former Soviet states in Central Asia this week, Russian state television reported Sunday, in what would be the Russian leader’s first known trip abroad since ordering the invasion of Ukraine.

Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion has killed thousands of people, displaced millions more and led to severe financial sanctions from the West, which Putin says are a reason to build stronger trade ties with other powers such as China, India and Iran.

Pavel Zarubin, the Kremlin correspondent of the Rossiya 1 state television station, said Putin would visit Tajikistan and Turkmenistan and then meet Indonesian President Joko Widodo for talks in Moscow.

In Dushanbe, Putin will meet Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, a close Russian ally and the longest-serving ruler of a former Soviet state. In Ashgabat, he will attend a summit of Caspian nations including the leaders of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Iran and Turkmenistan, Zarubin said.

Putin’s last known trip outside Russia was a visit to the Beijing in early February, where he and Chinese President Xi Jinping unveiled a “no limits” friendship treaty hours before both attended the opening ceremony of the Olympic Winter Games.

Russia says it sent troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 to degrade its neighbor’s military capabilities, keep it from being used by the West to threaten Russia, root out nationalists and defend Russian speakers in eastern regions. Ukraine calls the invasion an imperial-style land grab.
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Destruction Everywhere, Help Scarce After Afghanistan Quake

06/26/2022 ITasLeave a comment

When the ground heaved from last week’s earthquake in Afghanistan, Nahim Gul’s stone-and-mud house collapsed on top of him.

He clawed through the rubble in the pre-dawn darkness, choking on dust as he searched for his father and two sisters. He doesn’t know how many hours of digging passed before he caught a glimpse of their bodies under the ruins. They were dead.

Now, days after a 6-magnitude quake that devastated a remote southeast region of Afghanistan and killed at least 1,150 people by authorities’ estimates, Gul sees destruction everywhere and help in short supply. His niece and nephew were also killed in the quake, crushed by the walls of their house.

The United Nations has put the death toll at 770 people but warned it could rise further. Either toll would make the quake Afghanistan’s deadliest in two decades.

“I don’t know what will happen to us or how we should restart our lives,” Gul told The Associated Press on Sunday, his hands bruised and his shoulder injured. “We don’t have any money to rebuild.”

It’s a fear shared among thousands in the impoverished villages where the fury of the quake has fallen most heavily — in Paktika and Khost provinces, along the jagged mountains that straddle the country’s border with Pakistan.

Those who were barely scraping by have lost everything. Many have yet to be visited by aid groups and authorities, which are struggling to reach the afflicted area on rutted roads — some made impassable by landslides and damage.

Aware of its constraints, the cash-strapped Taliban have called for foreign assistance and on Saturday appealed to Washington to unfreeze billions of dollars in Afghanistan’s currency reserves. The United Nations and an array of international aid groups and countries have mobilized to send help.

China pledged Saturday nearly $7.5 million in emergency humanitarian aid, joining nations including Iran, Pakistan, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in dispatching a planeload of tents, towels, beds and other badly needed supplies to the quake-hit area.

U.N. Deputy Special Representative Ramiz Alakbarov toured the hard-hit Paktika province on Saturday to assess the damage and distribute food, medicine and tents. U.N. helicopters and trucks laden with bread, flour, rice and blankets have trickled into the stricken areas.

“Yesterday’s visit reaffirmed to me both the extreme suffering of people in Afghanistan and their tremendous resolve in the face of great adversity,” Alakbarov said, appealing for the repair of damaged water pipes, roads and communication lines in the area.

Without support, he added, Afghans “will continue to endure unnecessary and unimaginable hardship.”

But the relief effort remains patchy and limited due to funding and access constraints. The Taliban, which seized power last August from a government sustained for 20 years by a U.S.-led military coalition, appear overwhelmed by the logistical complexities of issues like debris removal in what is shaping up to be a major test of its capacity to govern.

Villagers have dug out their dead loved ones with their bare hands, buried them in mass graves and slept in the woods despite the rain. Nearly 800 families are living out in the open, according to the U.N.’s humanitarian coordination organization OCHA.

Gul received a tent and blankets from a local charity in the Gayan district, but he and his surviving relatives have had to fend for themselves. Terrified as the earth still rumbles from aftershocks like one on Friday that claimed five more lives, he said his children in Gayan refuse to go indoors.

The earthquake was the latest calamity to convulse Afghanistan, which has been reeling from a dire economic crisis since the Taliban took control of the country as the U.S. and its NATO allies were withdrawing their forces. Foreign aid — a mainstay of Afghanistan’s economy for decades — stopped practically overnight.

World governments piled on sanctions, halted bank transfers and paralyzed trade, refusing to recognize the Taliban government. The Biden administration cut off the Taliban’s access to $7 billion in foreign currency reserves held in the United States.

As he toured the disaster site, Acting Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi urged the White House to release the funds “at a time when Afghanistan is in the grips of earthquakes and floods” and to lift banking restrictions so charities can more easily provide aid.

Western donors have withheld longer-term assistance as they demand the Taliban allow a more inclusive rule and respect human rights. The former insurgents have resisted the pressure, imposing restrictions on the freedoms of women and girls that recall their first time in power in the late 1990s.

Now, around half the country’s 39 million people are facing life-threatening levels of food insecurity because of poverty. Most civil servants, including doctors, nurses and teachers, have not been paid for months.

U.N. agencies and other remaining organizations have scrambled to keep Afghanistan from the brink of starvation with a humanitarian program that has fed millions and kept the medical system afloat. But with international donors lagging, U.N. agencies face a $3 billion funding shortfall this year.

Reeling from war and impoverished long before the Taliban takeover, the far-flung areas hit by last Wednesday’s earthquake are particularly ill-equipped to cope.

Some local businessmen have swung into action. The Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Investment said on Sunday it had raised more than $1.5 million for Pakitka and Khost provinces.

Still, for those whose homes have been obliterated, the help may not be enough.

“We have nothing left,” Gul said.

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Thousands Protest in Madrid against NATO Summit