Displaced International Calls for Urgent Regional and UN-Led Assistance for Flood-Affected and Displaced Families in Nuristan
Displaced International (DI) expresses profound sorrow and concern over the devastating flash floods that struck Parun and surrounding areas of Afghanistan’s Nuristan Province on July 20. The disaster has placed already vulnerable and previously displaced families at renewed risk while forcing additional families from damaged or destroyed homes.
According to preliminary reports, at least 23 people have been killed, approximately 80 injured, and more than 100 remain missing. Homes, markets, roads, agricultural land, healthcare facilities, water systems, and other essential infrastructure have been damaged or destroyed. Approximately 1,000 families have reportedly lost access to safe drinking water, while the full scale of new displacement remains unknown.
For families uprooted by the floods, displacement means far more than the loss of shelter. Many have also lost food supplies, livelihoods, livestock, essential documents, community support, and access to healthcare and safe water. Families already living in displacement, poverty, or aid dependency now face compounded hardship and the prospect of being displaced yet again.
Nuristan was already among Afghanistan’s most impoverished, isolated, aid-dependent, and underserved provinces. Its mountainous terrain, inadequate roads, limited healthcare services, chronic food and medical shortages, and insufficient emergency-response capacity make rescue and relief operations exceptionally difficult. In Barg-e-Matal and Kamdesh districts alone, approximately 17,000 households were already facing severe food and medical shortages. These conditions leave displaced families—particularly women, children, older people, and people with disabilities—at heightened risk of hunger, illness, exploitation, family separation, and prolonged homelessness.
This disaster follows recurrent floods, droughts, landslides, and earthquakes across Afghanistan. Although the country has contributed little to global greenhouse gas emissions, it remains among the most vulnerable to climate change and the least prepared to withstand climate-intensified disasters. Decades of conflict, poverty, environmental degradation, declining humanitarian funding, and the international isolation and restrictions surrounding the repressive de facto authorities have further weakened its capacity to prepare for and respond to emergencies. Afghan civilians—especially displaced families—must not bear the consequences of these political conditions.
DI calls on the United Nations to lead an immediate, coordinated humanitarian response that prioritizes search and rescue while providing displaced families with emergency shelter, safe water, food, healthcare, sanitation, protection, and assistance to recover lost livelihoods. Immediate relief must be followed by sustained support for safe, dignified, and climate-resilient recovery so that temporary displacement does not become prolonged homelessness.
Afghanistan’s neighbors should act without delay. India and China, in particular, possess the resources, logistical capacity, specialized rescue teams, helicopters, field hospitals, and engineering equipment needed to reach isolated communities. DI urges them, together with Pakistan, Iran, the Central Asian states, and other international partners, to provide immediate assistance.
Ambassador Ashraf Haidari, President and Founder of Displaced International, said: “We extend our deepest condolences to the families who have lost loved ones and stand with everyone awaiting news of the missing. We are especially concerned for families already living in displacement and poverty, as well as those newly uprooted by the floods. In remote Nuristan, every hour matters. We urge Afghanistan’s neighbors—especially India and China—and the wider international community to mobilize lifesaving assistance immediately under a coordinated UN-led response. No displaced family should be abandoned because of geography, poverty, or politics.”
All assistance must reach affected communities safely, impartially, and without discrimination or political interference, with displaced and newly displaced families at the center of the emergency response.
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