"Genocide": Afghan ex-VP calls on UN to end “Taliban’s onslaught into Panjshir province”

Former vice president and the self-declared caretaker of Afghanistan, Amrullah Saleh, has called on the United Nations and the international community to “rapidly and generously” respond to the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Panjshir Valley—the last province resistingthe Taliban.

In a letter to the UN, Saleh, who is leading the resistance force against the militia group, said, “Around 2,50,000 people, including local women, children, elderly and 10,000 IDPs who arrived in Panjshir after the fall of Kabul and other large cities are stuck inside these Valleys and suffering from the consequences of this inhuman blocked. If no attention is paid to this situation, a full scale human rights and humanitarian catastrophe including starvation and mass killing, even genocide of these people are in the making.”

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Calling for help, Saleh said, “Two decades of conflicts, recurrent natural disasters, disease outbreaks and COVID-19 pandemic and recent takeover of most of the country by Taliban has plunged the country into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. We call on the United Nations and the international community to do its utmost to prevent Taliban’s onslaught into Panjshir province.”

Panjshir Valley, which is 150 kilometres north of Kabul near the Hindu Kush mountain range, is facing an intense battle between the Taliban and resistance forces. Both sides claimed to have the upper hand, but neither have conclusive evidence to prove it.

Taliban spokesman Bilal Karimi said Khinj and Unabah districts had been seized, giving the Taliban forces control of four of the province’s seven districts.

"The Mujahideen (Taliban fighters) are advancing toward the centre (of the province)," he said on Twitter.

But the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, led by Ahmad Massoud and Saleh, said it surrounded “thousands of terrorists” in Khawak pass and the Taliban had abandoned vehicles and equipment in the Dashte Rewak area.

Moreover, there are reports that at least 600 Taliban militants have been killed in clashes against the resistance forces.

(With inputs from agencies)