India stands committed to providing humanitarian assistance to Afghan people

As part of its ongoing humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people, India on Friday supplied a fourth batch of medical assistance consisting of three tons of essential life-saving medicines to Afghanistan. It was handed over to the Indira Gandhi Hospital, Kabul.

"India stands committed to continue our special relationship with the people of Afghanistan and provide them humanitarian assistance," said the Ministry of External Affairs on Saturday.

"In this endeavor, we had recently supplied 500,000 doses of COVID vaccine and 1.6 tons of medical assistance to Afghanistan through World Health Organization (WHO)," the MEA pointed out.

In coming weeks, India would be supplying more batches of humanitarian assistance consisting of medicines and foodgrains to Afghanistan, the MEA said.

It may be noted that in the first tranche of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan after its takeover by the Taliban, India on December 11 had sent medical supplies to that country as per its commitment of extending help to the Afghan people in their times of difficulty.

The medical supplies were handed over to the representatives of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Kabul.

The Taliban regime has been seeking international help to operate the Kabul airport and to supply essential medicines to hospitals in the country since August 2021.

Afghanistan’s leading hospitals including the Indira Gandhi Children Hospital in Kabul, had exhausted supplies of anaesthetics necessary for surgical procedures which prompted Taliban’s acting Deputy Prime Minister Mullah Baradar to reach out to the UNDP in Doha.

India has been pitching for providing unimpeded humanitarian aid to the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan to address the unfolding humanitarian crisis in the country. At the same time, India has been calling for the formation of a truly inclusive government in Kabul while insisting that Afghan soil must not be used for any terrorist activities against any country.

This is the fourth time that India has sent humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan after the Taliban took over Kabul by dislodging the government of President Ashraf Ghani in August last year.

This is likely to be followed by large scale humanitarian assistance from India to Afghanistan through a transit facility from Pakistan.