Feature: China's aid eases misery of Afghan returnees in chilly winter

BAMYAN, Afghanistan, Feb. 21 (Xinhua) -- Abdul Azim, together with his 10 family members, huddled in a mud hut of about 50 square meters in Dara-e-Foladi, a far-flung village in the mountainous area of central Afghanistan's Bamyan province, where the temperature drops to minus 30 degrees Celsius in winter.

During the 20 years of conflicts in Afghanistan after the United States invaded the country in October 2001, more than 30,000 civilians lost their lives, and some 11 million people were made refugees.

To escape the war, Azim was once one of the refugees who fled from Bamiyan to Pakistan in 2005, and spent four years there begging on the streets. It was not until recent years that he settled back in his hometown.

But years of displacement left his family without a fixed source of income, and extreme poverty became the next problem for Azim.

Azim said there was neither water nor electricity at his home. "The winter here is very cold and, in the past, my family had to huddle together in only one blanket to keep warm because we don't even have the fuel to make a fire to keep warm."

About 8,000 returning refugees who had fled to other countries and 500 returning families who had been displaced in other provinces are in dire need of humanitarian assistance, said Saifullah Ayar, acting director of the provincial department for refugees and repatriation affairs.

To help prevent a possible humanitarian catastrophe, China pledged 250 million yuan (about 37 million U.S. dollars) in aid to Afghanistan, including food supplies and winter clothes.

Late last autumn, Azim received two blankets and a coat. "The local government called and said these were all provided by China," said Azim.

"When I came home with the goods from China, my children were very happy because it made our life this winter different and the children would not get cold again," Azim added.

According to the provincial department for refugees and repatriation affairs, Chinese aid has been distributed to 844 families of returning refugees in the past one year in Bamyan.

Like Azim, another returnee Taherah has thanked neighboring China for sending humanitarian aid, saying that the aid kits have helped his family to keep warm during the night.

"These are from China," the poverty-stricken Afghan woman said while gesturing at two blankets and a coat.

Because of the impact of the war, Taherah, with three of her children, had been wandering the provinces of Bamyan and neighboring Wardak for more than a decade before returning to her hometown last year.

According to the Ministry for Refugees and Repatriation of the Afghan caretaker government, more than 1 million refugees have returned home since the takeover by the Taliban on Aug. 15, 2021.

However, aid agencies predicted that a record 28.3 million people, around two-thirds of the population, will need humanitarian assistance in 2023, with 6 million of those already perilously close to famine.

"We have distributed China's aid to the needy families in Bamyan and I am thankful to China for sending the assistance," provincial director for natural disaster management and humanitarian affairs Mawlawi Shakir Tahir told Xinhua in his office recently.