KUNDUZ, Afghanistan: Fighting in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz has led to a “rapidly deteriorating” humanitarian situation, officials said on Thursday, leaving thousands of people with limited access to food, water, or medical care.
Street-to-street gun battles have continued for four days after Taliban militants slipped past the city’s defenses on Monday.
Government troops, backed by US special forces and air strikes, have repeatedly declared that they are in control of the city, but residents report that heavy fighting has forced many people to flee.
The fighting has forced as many as 10,000 people from their homes in Kunduz, the United Nations reported, with those who remain facing serious water, food and electricity shortages, as well as threats from the fighting.
“Many families were unable to bring their possessions with them and are in a precarious position,” Dominic Parker, head of the UN’s humanitarian coordination office, said in a statement. “We have had reports that some families have been forced to sleep out in the open and many have few food supplies.”
Among those fleeing Kunduz are about two-thirds of the staff at the city’s main public hospital, which was struck by several rockets and small arms fire, said Marzia Yaftali Salaam, a doctor.
The 200-bed public hospital is the main provider of medical care in Kunduz after a more advanced trauma center run by Medecins Sans Frontieres was destroyed by an American air strike last year.
In the past three days, the hospital has been inundated by at least 210 patients, many of them civilians, including women and children, wounded in the fighting, Salaam said.
“Many of the wounded had to be carried to clinics in surrounding districts and private clinics in the city,” she said. “If the situation remains the same, we may be forced to halt our services.”
During a lull in the fighting on Wednesday, nearly 50 casualties were rushed to the hospital in the span of a few hours, said Hameed Alam, head of the public health department in Kunduz.
The US military command in Kabul said Afghan forces are “defeating Taliban attempts to take Kunduz,” with reinforcements on the way and commandos continuing to clear “isolated pockets” of Taliban fighters.
The Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan with an iron fist from 1996 to 2001, are seeking to topple the Western-backed government in Kabul and reimpose Islamic rule.
“There is fighting in every street and the situation is critical,” said Ismail Kawasi, a spokesman for the Public Health Ministry in Kabul.
Additional medical supplies and personnel were positioned in neighboring provinces, but they must wait for the fighting to subside before they can be flown to Kunduz, he said.
UN: Situation in Kunduz is ‘rapidly deteriorating’
UN: Situation in Kunduz is ‘rapidly deteriorating’
‘Doomsday Clock’ moves closer to midnight over threats from nukes, climate change, AI
- At the end of the Cold War, the clock was as close as 17 minutes to midnight. In the past few years, to address rapid global changes, the group has changed from counting down the minutes until midnight to counting down the seconds
WASHINGTON: Earth is closer than it’s ever been to destruction as Russia, China, the US and other countries become “increasingly aggressive, adversarial, and nationalistic,” a science-oriented advocacy group said Tuesday as it advanced its “Doomsday Clock” to 85 seconds till midnight.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist members had an initial demonstration on Friday and then announced their results on Tuesday.
The scientists cited risks of nuclear war, climate change, potential misuse of biotechnology and the increasing use of artificial intelligence without adequate controls as it made the annual announcement, which rates how close humanity is from ending.
Last year the clock advanced to 89 seconds to midnight.
Since then, “hard-won global understandings are collapsing, accelerating a winner-takes-all great power competition and undermining the international cooperation” needed to reduce existential risks, the group said.
They worry about the threat of escalating conflicts involving nuclear-armed countries, citing the Russia-Ukraine war, May’s conflict between India and Pakistan and whether Iran is capable of developing nuclear weapons after strikes last summer by the US and Israel.
International trust and cooperation is essential because, “if the world splinters into an us-versus-them, zero-sum approach, it increases the likelihood that we all lose,” said Daniel Holz, chair of the group’s science and security board.
The group also highlighted droughts, heat waves and floods linked to global warming, as well as the failure of nations to adopt meaningful agreements to fight global warming — singling out US President Donald Trump’s efforts to boost fossil fuels and hobble renewable energy production.
Starting in 1947, the advocacy group used a clock to symbolize the potential and even likelihood of people doing something to end humanity.
At the end of the Cold War, it was as close as 17 minutes to midnight. In the past few years, to address rapid global changes, the group has changed from counting down the minutes until midnight to counting down the seconds.
The group said the clock could be turned back if leaders and nations worked together to address existential risks.
