UK officials hold talks with Taliban over humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan

Top UK officials held talks with the Taliban leadership about the dire humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, British Foreign Office said on Friday.

A UK government spokesperson said British representatives returned to Afghanistan on Thursday for talks on how to respond to the country’s deepening humanitarian crisis.

Nick Dyer, the UK’s Special Envoy for Famine Prevention and Humanitarian Affairs, Hugo Shorter, Charge d’Affaires ad Interim of the UK Mission to Afghanistan and Hester Waddams, Deputy Head of Mission and Political Counsellor, UK Mission to Afghanistan met senior Taliban officials including Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi and Abdul Haq Wasiq.

“As well as discussing the dire humanitarian situation, officials made clear to the Taliban the UK’s serious concerns about human rights, including those of women, girls and minorities, and the treatment of women’s rights activists,” the UK spokesperson added.

Separately, in a Twitter post, Hugo Shorter said both sides discussed the humanitarian crisis, terrorism, and the UK’s serious concerns on the human rights situation in the country, including those of women, girls and minorities.

“We underlined that the negative trend, including the lengthy detention of female activists, reprisals and extra-judicial killings is deeply concerning. We stressed that all girls should return to school in the spring,” he added.

Conflict last year had forced more than 700,000 Afghans to leave their homes and added to the 5.5 million people already displaced over past years, the UN migration agency said on Tuesday.

“The ongoing crisis in Afghanistan is intensifying humanitarian needs and increasing displacement risks both inside the country, as well as across borders to countries in the region”, according to a statement issued by Ugochi Daniels, the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) Deputy Director-General for Operations.

Afghans, especially women and girls, are facing increasing vulnerabilities and protection risks, the UN agency said.