More than 24 percent of children between ages of 5 and 17 experience anxiety, a rate 10 times higher than the global average, UNICEF reported on Monday.

Nearly 15 percent experience depression, UNICEF said.

“The legacy of conflict, family migration and displacement, recurrent natural disasters, high levels of poverty, and risks of harm from explosive ordnances all exacerbate these mental health challenges,” UNICEF said. “In times of crisis, children face heightened levels of stress, trauma and disruption to their routines.”

The agency highlighted that compounding these challenges is the persistently restrictive measures on girls’ education, limiting their hope for employment and a better future, as well as their access to basic services like healthcare and mental health support.

UNICEF said that last year it provided mental health and psychosocial support to nearly 4 million children and caregivers across all 34 provinces of Afghanistan, largely through child friendly spaces.
UNICEF aims to reach 3.6 million more children and caregivers with mental health and psychosocial support in 2024.

In 2023, UNICEF trained nearly 3,000 social workers in Afghanistan, nearly half of whom were women.

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Kabul residents are concerned that electricity outages have significantly increased recently in the capital.

They say that in 24 hours, they get electricity for only a few hours.

According to them, if the power company does not solve the problem, people will face more challenges.

“We want the government to improve the electricity situation. Diseases have increased a lot. There is no electricity. There is only two or three hours of electricity in 24 hours,” said Sediqullah, a resident of Kabul.

Mojtabi, another resident of Kabul, said: “Electricity outages usually increase during summer. I think water issues could also have a role. The residents of Kabul and myself, who study here, are facing a shortage of electricity.”

Officials at Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat (DABS), the country’s national power utility company, emphasize that with the increase in electricity consumption, there will be more outages, however, they are working to address the problem.

“We sometimes give outages to our customers during the day, and outages are also planned for the night. In Kabul and its neighboring provinces, we consume about 400 megawatts of electricity, which does not cover the needs of the provinces,” said Safiullah Ahmadzai, the commercial deputy head of DABS.

Currently, the majority of the electricity needed by Afghanistan is imported from neighboring countries, and Afghanistan pays more than $300 million to these countries annually.

Although the focus of the Islamic Emirate is to produce electricity from domestic sources, experts say this needs more time and until the needed electricity is provided from domestic resources, the problem of outages will remain.

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Takayoshi Kuromiya, the ambassador of Japan in Kabul, said that the Islamic Emirate’s participation in the third Doha meeting has increased the scope for interaction between the Islamic Emirate and the international community.

The Japanese ambassador raised this issue on Sunday in a meeting with Mawlavi Abdul Kabir, the IEA’s deputy prime minister for political affairs.

Kuromiya said the third Doha meeting was in favor of the Islamic Emirate and that all conditions and demands of the Islamic Emirate have been accepted by the United Nations.

He hoped that Afghanistan’s banking restrictions would be lifted soon.

The political deputy of the Islamic Emirate also emphasized that they want to interact with all countries.

The lifting of banking restrictions, unfreezing of foreign reserves and the fight against drugs had been key agenda points at the latest meeting which was held last week in the Qatari capital.

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