Our house was hit by grenade and my daughter lost her leg, says displaced Afghan, Zunnoon. Cash grant helped them with treatment and food
Published: Jul 20, 2017 Reading time: 3 minutes
Zunnoon Abdali is a residentof Zurmat, district in the eastern Afghan province of Paktia, which was heavily affected by fighting between government forces and armed opposition groups. Because of active military operations and ongoing conflict in his village, Zunnoon Abdali and his family had to flee to the provincial capital Gardez. He was in Gardez for 3 months, together with his wife and 7 children, when People in Need (PIN) assisted the family through the Emergency Response Mechanism Programme funded by the European Union.
“Last year during Ramadan, a rocket-propelled grenade hit our house during heavy armed conflict between military and opposition groups. My oldest daughter Haiza lost her leg during the attack and her left hand was broken. All these problems forced me to finally leave Zurmat district and go to Gardez,” Zunnoon Abdali recalls the events leading to his displacement.
We had no money for treatment and struggled with food shortages
Zunnoon and his family arrived into Gardez with nothing, not even a shelter to stay in, so he borrowed some money from his relatives to rent a house. “I was concerned about my daughter who urgently needed treatment. She was constantly suffering from pain in her leg and hand. I was not able to get the money needed for proper treatment, as my only income was from occasional daily labor,” Zunnoon Abdali describes. It was the end of the year with Gardez experience extreme temperatures of below zero degrees Celsius. There was very few opportunities to find work in Gardez and “relatives could not support my family much longer and we were also struggling with shortages of food,” he recounts.
Zunnoon Abdali’s family was one of the 500 families displaced in January 2017, out of which INGOs in cooperation with UN OCHA and local government identified 145 families in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. The majority of them were displaced from surrounding districts in Paktia, some came from neighboring provinces, most arriving with very little. But the one thing all families had in common was having to run from their homes because of ongoing armed conflict and high levels of insecurity
Thank you for taking care of my life
PIN was able to provide Zunnoon Abdali with emergency assistance and his family received financial support of 8.000 AFA (approx. 100EUR) for necessary food items and another 14.000 AFA (approx. 180EUR) for his daughter’s treatment, to help them go through the initial critical phase.
“It was a really good and timely help from PIN. My family was really happy to have that amount of money. I could finally buy food for my family and there was no need to ask from others anymore. Now my daughter can visit the doctor at least twice a month and I can ensure better treatment for her,” he says. “I would like to say thank you so much for providing good support and extra assistance for better treatment and taking care of my life,” says 28-year old Haiza.
As the only Emergency Response Mechanism (ERM) actor in Paktia, PIN was the first responder in Gardez city. The ERM is funded by the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection Department (ECHO), and provides timely and coordinated humanitarian assistance to people affected by conflict and natural disasters across Afghanistan.
Lateef Waziri, PIN Afghanistan Communication Officer and Raakin Dawari, PIN Gardez ERM Team Leader.
*Names of people have been changed in the article for security reasons
