UN envoy: Afghanistan on brink of `humanitarian catastrophe’

By EDITH M. LEDERER
Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N.’s special representative for Afghanistan is warning that the country is “on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe” and its collapsing economy is heightening the risk of extremism. Deborah Lyons said Wednesday that the United Nations predicts that 60% of Afghanistan’s 38 million people face crisis levels of hunger in a food emergency that will likely worsen over the winter. But she saysa humanitarian catastrophe “is preventable,” saying the main cause is financial sanctions on the Taliban, who took over the country Aug. 15. She says the sanctions “have paralyzed the banking system, affecting every aspect of the economy.”