A U.S. watchdog says it has disclosed to Congress information about diversion and control of international humanitarian assistance by de facto Taliban authorities in Afghanistan.
“We have just uncovered, as part of our response to the House Foreign Relations Committee, some really horrific information about the problems with the U.N. operations in Afghanistan,” John Sopko, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), told an event at King’s College London on Thursday.
Sopko did not offer more details about his findings saying the foreign relations committee had tasked SIGAR to investigate and report to it whether U.S. aid to Afghanistan benefited the Taliban.
“A lot of congressmen are torn in this conundrum between giving humanitarian assistance to Afghans who are suffering versus how much of that [aid] is going to a regime which we hate,” said Sopko.
United Nations officials have not yet responded to VOA questions sent Thursday about what they know about diverted aid.
The Taliban are under U.S. sanctions that date back decades when the group was first in power over much of Afghanistan in the 1990s.
After spending over $146 billion on reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan between 2002 and 2022, the United States government suspended all development aid to the country following Taliban’s return to power in August 2021.
The Taliban deny they are interfering in humanitarian programs and accuse the U.S. and other Western donors of politicizing aid to Afghanistan.
However, the Islamist regime has imposed gender-based restrictions on aid activities denying Afghan women’s work for the U.N. and other non-government organizations – a move globally condemned as misogynistic.
Meanwhile, the U.N. says there continue to be many incidents of interference involving U.N. aid workers.
“118 gender-related incidents were recorded, with some 97 percent attributed to the de facto authorities and involving, inter alia, interference with programming, incidents at checkpoints, threats against humanitarian workers, assets and facilities, and mahrams [male escorts] required for movement of female staff,” the U.N. Special Representative for Afghanistan reported to the Security Council last month.
The U.N. has reported progress in reducing risks of fraud and diversion of funds in Afghanistan but has not given more details.
Robust funding
The United States, even while enforcing sanctions on the Taliban, has maintained humanitarian funding to Afghanistan amounting to about $2 billion since August 2021.
Despite a reported drop in donors’ response to the U.N. humanitarian appeal for Afghanistan, the United States remains at the top of the donors’ list with over $336 million contribution so far this year. Last year, the United States contributed over $1.26 billion to the U.N. appeal.
As of July 20, only 23% of this year’s Afghanistan appeal has been funded, according to the U.N.
Aid agencies have warned that a lack of funding to the appeal will force millions of vulnerable Afghan households into extreme poverty.
Citing North Korea and Syria, among other countries, John Sopko said in the past “we in the United States held our nose and delivered assistance to people around the world who live under governments we hate.”
Last month, the U.S. Department of States announced an additional $920 million in humanitarian assistance for the people of Syria taking the total U.S. assistance to the country since 2011 to $16.8 billion.
SIGAR said a new proposed draft law, which was passed by the House and under consideration by the Senate, will prohibit any U.S. assistance going “directly or indirectly” to the Taliban. Sopko predicted the bill, if passed, would have “serious implications” for aid to Afghanistan.