ANDMA ready to deal with winter challenges

KABUL Natural Disaster Management Authority (ANDMA) on Sunday said it had started transferring food and other necessary items to impassable provinces ahead of snowfall to deal with winter-related natural calamities.

ANDMA deputy chief Mohammad Aslam Sayas told reporters that they had formed a committee under supervision of Chief Executive Officer Dr. Abdullah Abdullah and a plan had been devised and all the departments concerned tasked accordingly.

He said ministries of agriculture, rural development, IOM and UNHCR were members of the committee.

He said all the stakeholders had pledged fulfilling their parts including preparation and in-time dissemination of food and non-food items to needy families.

Heating materials would be mostly provided to families living in tents and the Refugee Ministry and UNHCR had been asked to distribute the materials in phases, Sayas continued.

“We have taken measures to distribute the materials in a timely manner because during the previous years, people had been facing food shortages and the natural disasters led to fatalities and there had been no one to help,” the ANDMA official said.

He said governors were responsible to store the winter aid and distribute it to families according to their needs and inform the ANDMA in case there any problem.

President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai has urged relevant authorities to take proper measures for transferring relief supplies to remote and impassible provinces before winter.

Kanishka Turkistani, public health ministry spokesperson, said her ministry dispatched medicines on annual basis to provinces including Ghor, Daikundi, Badakhshan, Faryab, Badghis, Jawzjan and Sar-i-Pul before winter.

Recently, residents of Daikundi said they were concerned about food and medicine shortages during winter and called for assistance before snow could close roads.

ra/ma

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