<div><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>At least 157 people have died in Afghanistan’s harsh winter, a Taliban official said Tuesday, with the death toll doubling in less than a week as millions face bitter temperatures with minimal humanitarian aid.</b></span><br></div><div><br></div><div>The country is suffering one of its coldest winters, with temperatures plummeting to as low as minus 28 degrees Celsius (minus 18 Fahrenheit) in early January – far below the nationwide average of between 0 and 5 degrees Celsius for this time of year.</div><div><br></div><div>The impact has been made worse by the limited amount of humanitarian aid being distributed in the country, following the Taliban’s ban on female NGO workers.</div><div><br></div><div>The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said on Twitter Sunday it was delivering aid such as blankets, heating and shelter to some 565,700 people.</div><div><br></div><div>“But much more is needed amid one of the coldest spells in years,” it added.</div><div><br></div><div>Around 70,000 livestock have also frozen to death across the country, Shafiullah Rahimi, a spokesman for the Taliban’s Ministry of Disaster Management told CNN Tuesday.</div><div><br></div><div>Since the hardline Islamist group took over in August 2021, Afghanistan has plunged into an economic and humanitarian crisis.</div><div><br></div><div>It has been battered by natural disasters and is entering its third consecutive year of drought-like conditions.</div><div><br></div><div>An estimated 28.3 million people – roughly two thirds of Afghanistan’s population – are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance to survive, according to a recent UNOCHA report.</div><div><br></div><div>At least half a dozen major foreign aid groups have suspended their operations in Afghanistan since December, when the Taliban ordered all local and international non-governmental organizations to stop their female employees from coming to work, or risk having their licenses revoked.</div><div><br></div><div>Last week, some of the UN’s most senior female officials took a four-day trip to Afghanistan and met with Taliban leaders in Kabul, asking them to lift the ban and “put the good of the country first.”</div><div><br></div><div>Amina Mohammed, the UN’s Deputy Secretary-General, described the recent policies as a violation of women’s basic human rights.</div><div><br></div><div>“Afghanistan is isolating itself, in the midst of a terrible humanitarian crisis and one of the most vulnerable nations on earth to climate change,” Mohammed said in a statement. “We must do everything we can to bridge this gap.” Source: CNN</div><div><br></div><div>bnbd24/fas</div>