Iranian Red Crescent Society to Provide Emergency Aid to Afghanistan after Flash Flooding

Heavy rains throughout 18 districts in three provinces of the northern region of Afghanistan last Friday caused rivers to crest suddenly. As banks collapsed, the fast-moving waters pushed mud, trees, and other debris across farmlands and into many towns and cities without warning.

The country’s northern Baghlan province was most seriously affected by deluge and floods which followed. According to representatives of the World Food Programme who were on the scene quickly after the disaster hit and searchers began sifted through the mud, thousands of homes were destroyed just in that province alone, along with many dead, injured, or still not located.

According to Rana Deraz, a spokesperson for the Afghan part of the WFP, the organization estimated there were at least “311 fatalities, 2,011 houses destroyed, and 2,800 houses damaged.”

Schools, homes, and extensive agricultural fields were destroyed by the fast-moving waters. Most hospitals and emergency care facilities in the areas most seriously affected were also lost in the natural disaster.

Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesperson for the Taliban government of the nation, said in a post on the social media platform X that, “Hundreds of our fellow citizens have succumbed to these calamitous floods.”

Those floods, he went on, have “wrought extensive devastation upon residential properties, resulting in significant financial losses.”

Knowing the seriousness of the tragedy and the inability of their country on its own to provide enough support fast enough to prevent further suffering for those affected, Afghan General President the Afghan Red Crescent, reached out almost immediately to the Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) for help.

The IRCS quickly agreed to help.

According to Razieh Alishvandi, the deputy head of international affairs for the IRCS, the organization is currently arranging for deployment of emergency services personnel and a wide range of humanitarian aid packages to Afghanistan. Those packages include food, water, medical supplies, and emergency sanitation items, to prevent the already very difficult situation in the flooded areas from growing even worse. 

The shipments and emergency personnel from the IRCS should be heading to Afghanistan almost immediately, he said.