Speaking at a UN conference held to assess the Afghan situation, UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan Deborah Lyons called on the Islamic Emirate to initiate an intra-Afghan dialogue for national reconciliation.
The UN Security Council convened a special conference on the Afghan situation on Wednesday.
The meeting was attended by the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and other members of the council as well as Mahbooba Saraj, an Afghan women’s rights activist.
“No Afghan should live in fear of a knock at their door in the night and no family should be left to wonder about the whereabouts and fate of their loved ones,” Lyons said.
“It is in no one’s interest to see a collapse of the current state in Afghanistan,” she added.
The secretary general and UN envoy Lyons both mentioned concerns over Afghan girls not attending school and the recent disappearance of Afghan women’s rights activists.
According to Lyons, the Islamic Emirate has taken “some steps” to fulfill their commitments, but there is an emerging environment of intimidation, and a contraction of the media space.
She expressed concerns over the disappearance of Tamana Zaryabi Paryani and Parawana Ibrahimkhel. “We remain extremely concerned” about the fate of missing female activists, she said.
The UN special envoy said the total ask for assistance to Afghanistan from donors is now $8 billion.
Talking at the conference, UN Secretary General António Guterres said that the window of opportunity is open for trust but the Islamic Emirate must earn it.
He also called for ramping up humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan
He said that Afghanistan is “hanging by a thread,” clinics are overcrowded, education and social services are facing collapse, and families are selling babies to purchase food.
Mahbooba Saraj, an Afghan women’s rights activist told the conference that “today” in Afghanistan women are literally being erased from public life.
The majority of Afghan girls are banned from secondary schools, she said.