As the U.S. government diverts military equipment and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, the famine in Afghanistan has become so dire that some people are engaging in organ harvesting and human trafficking to survive, according to the latest quarterly report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).
The United Nations declared a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan last December. The SIGAR report concurred, adding that the crisis is worsening.
“NGOs have reported some families resorting to selling kidneys or other organs, and even selling their children to survive,” SIGAR said. “Media reports indicate that organ sales have become particularly widespread in Afghanistan, with the price of a human kidney dropping by over half due to high supply since the Taliban seized power.”The SIGAR report attributed some of the increase in starvation to a historically severe drought.
“The onset of spring traditionally brings relief from food shortages; however, with Afghanistan in the grips of the worst drought in three decades, below-average winter precipitation means the spring harvest is unlikely to improve food security for vulnerable families,” the report said.
SIGAR also partly attributed the war in Ukraine to the worsening crisis in Afghanistan.“The spillover effects of the war in Ukraine threaten to worsen the crisis in Afghanistan, as food and fuel prices surge and supply chains falter,” the report said. “These disruptions drove a 9-percent increase in the price of fuel in the second week of March alone.”
SIGAR noted that the United Nations requested international donors representing 41 countries to contribute $4.4 billion to Afghanistan, but the U.N. received only $2.44 billion—which included a $204 million pledge from the United States.
“While it is not unusual for donor pledges to fall short of humanitarian appeals, Western officials noted that donor interest at this conference may have been diverted by the war in Ukraine and dampened by distaste for the Taliban’s increasing repression,” the report said.
SIGAR further reported that the Pentagon is taking military equipment initially intended for Afghanistan and rerouting it to Ukraine.
The report said the Department of Defense (DOD) exercised its “dispositional authority” last December to reappropriate equipment that had belonged to the now-defunct Afghan security force, which collapsed last August as the U.S. military withdrew from the country.
In January, the Pentagon developed plans to transfer five former Afghan Mi-17 helicopters that had been undergoing maintenance in Ukraine to the Ukrainian government, the SIGAR report said. Ukraine’s government accepted the transfer in March, the report said.
Additionally, the report said the Biden administration promised last month to send Ukraine 11 additional helicopters originally intended for Afghanistan.
“DOD also transferred 16 million rounds of varied nonstandard munitions, originally procured for Afghanistan, to Ukraine,” the report said.
