Over 40,000 people in Afghanistan have been injured since June amid ongoing conflict as the Taliban secured vast parts of the country, including Kabul, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) announced on Tuesday.
The stark figures show the scale of the conflict throughout the country, with 4,042 people requiring medical treatment in the first 10 days of August and more than 3,500 hurt in the last week alone.
“Our medical teams and physical rehabilitation centers expect to receive patients for months and years to come as they recover from wounds from explosive devices that litter the country, many of them newly laid in recent weeks,” the ICRC director-general, Robert Mardini, warned in a statement released by the group.
With more than 40,000 people wounded during the fighting in Afghanistan in June, July, and August alone, the ICRC expressed relief that Kabul avoided “what could have been devastating urban warfare,” as seen in other parts of the country.
The head of the ICRC delegation in Afghanistan, Eloi Fillion, cited how, while avoiding conflict in Kabul had prevented what would have otherwise been “enormous” suffering, there are still “huge humanitarian needs” in Kandahar, Herat, and Lashkargah.
The ICRC, which has pledged to “stand by the Afghan people” and provide aid to “help men, women and children cope with the unfolding situation,” has been working in the region since 1987. Currently, the ICRC has around 1,800 medical staff deployed to help support Afghan hospitals coping with the fallout of the conflict.
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