Is the Taliban to blame for the high death toll? | DW News

There have been appeals for the the global community to help Afghanistan following Saturday’s deadly 6.3 magnitude earthquake which the Taliban government said killed more than 2,000 people in the west of the country. Aid group CARE USA — a member of CARE International umbrella — said in a statement that the country was already in the grip of a humanitarian crisis when the latest earthquake struck and was desperately underfunded. “The current Humanitarian Response Plan that aims to support 23.7 million people in the country is only 33.9% funded, while needs are increasing rapidly,” the organization said in a statement. “The fast-approaching winter, combined with this new disaster, is likely to exacerbate the existing challenges,” the organization stressed. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that humanitarian partners “are ramping up response efforts” while search and rescue efforts continued.