RASC News Agency: The humanitarian catastrophe in Afghanistan’s east has entered a perilous new phase, as Save the Children warns that thousands of children are now stranded in life-threatening conditions following Sunday night’s 6.0-magnitude earthquake that devastated Kunar and neighboring provinces. In a statement released on Wednesday, September 3, the organization reported that entire villages remain inaccessible, cut off by landslides and collapsed mountain roads. This isolation has paralyzed mobile medical teams, preventing them from reaching survivors particularly children, who remain the most vulnerable in disaster zones. The group stressed that the situation has become “a race against time”, as families desperately await food, clean drinking water, shelter, and medical care.
Just a day earlier, Save the Children Canada confirmed that at least 15,000 children have been directly affected by the twin quakes in Kunar and Nangarhar. The disaster has contaminated scarce water supplies, disrupted food chains, and triggered growing fears of epidemic outbreaks, exacerbating the suffering of a population already teetering under years of poverty and conflict. The charity said it is working to deliver safe water, emergency health care, and establish child-protection centers offering critical psychosocial support to the youngest victims. Samira Syed Rahman, Program Director for Save the Children in Afghanistan, underscored the gravity of the crisis:
“Every single hour is decisive. Reaching cut-off villages is possible only on foot, and yet the wounded cannot wait. Families are in desperate need of food, medicine, clean water, and above all, safety for their children.”
Field reports paint a grim picture: the destruction is vast and merciless. In remote mountain hamlets, families are digging through rubble with bare hands in search of missing loved ones. Children have been seen wandering amid ruins, shivering without shelter, while survivors plead for aid that is slow to arrive. The Taliban authorities, who monopolize disaster management structures, have once again revealed staggering incompetence and indifference. Officials admit that more than 5,000 people are dead, with at least 1,500 wounded and over 5,000 homes destroyed. Yet beyond issuing hollow casualty figures, they have done little to coordinate rescue efforts, provide logistics, or organize the equitable distribution of aid. On-the-ground testimonies accuse Taliban officials of hoarding relief supplies, ignoring remote districts, and showing more interest in propaganda than in saving lives.
Meanwhile, international humanitarian agencies and foreign governments are scrambling to fill the vacuum. India, Pakistan, and other regional states have already dispatched consignments of emergency supplies, while dozens of countries have pledged assistance. The contrast is stark: where global solidarity rises to meet human need, the Taliban preside over paralysis, corruption, and neglect. For the children of Kunar and Nangarhar, the earthquake is not simply a natural disaster it is the continuation of a national tragedy under Taliban rule. Denied education, stripped of food security, and robbed of basic freedoms, Afghanistani children are now crushed under a dual burden: the wrath of nature and the cruelty of misrule.
Unless the international community bypasses the Taliban’s failed structures and ensures direct, transparent delivery of aid to survivors, Afghanistan risks plunging deeper into one of the darkest humanitarian crises of its modern history.
