Women displaced in eastern Afghanistan face hunger, insecurity, and trauma amid renewed conflict

Countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan Source: UN Women Earthquake survivors in Afghanistan have been forced to flee again due to Pakistan-Afghanistan border conflict. It was during an air attack in eastern Afghanistan that 30-year-old Najeeba* felt her labour pains begin. Around her, families were already on the move, fleeing renewed hostilities along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. But her baby wasn’t going to wait. Just six months earlier, the ground had shaken beneath her feet when a massive earthquake devastated the region. Now, it was the skies that she feared. “There was no safe place”, she recalled, as the conflict reached the camp where she had been living with other families displaced by the earthquake. “Aircraft were flying overhead, and my children were extremely frightened; whenever they heard the sound, they would cry and scream.” With her husband, she packed up their tent and few remaining belongings. Najeeba gave birth in a Red Crescent clinic, then climbed into a rented mini truck with her newborn daughter, six other children aged two to 11, and her husband, and escaped to a new camp in the Maza Dara Valley, in Nurgal district. What is happening on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and how does the conflict affect displaced women? More than 100,000 people have been displaced by the latest cross-border air strikes, shelling, drone attacks, and ground clashes in eastern Afghanistan, following the escalation of renewed hostilities along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Women and girls – who are already living under increasing restrictions on their freedoms and movement under the Taliban – and those struggling to survive the aftermath of last year’s earthquake in eastern Afghanistan have been hit hardest by the increased insecurity. An estimated 50,000 people in the affected areas are at in...

Original source: Relief Web