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Uzbekistan will host an international conference here this month to discuss the promotion of stability, security and post-conflict reconstruction in neighbouring Afghanistan, the Uzbek Foreign Ministry said Friday.
A set of measures and proposals are to be developed at the event, scheduled for July 25-26 with the participation of delegations from more than 20 countries and international organizations, Xinhua reported citing the ministry. It added that the agenda includes the integration of the war-torn country into regional cooperation processes. This comes United Nations has appealed for funds in urgent humanitarian response to some 360,000 Afghans impacted by the earthquake. The UN and the Afghan government have been largely involved in the operations to save civilians. However, the United Nations said it does not have heavy machines and equipment and relies on the Afghan authorities to provide it. After the Taliban takeover of the country in August, the protracted Afghanistan conflict abruptly gave way to accelerating human rights and humanitarian crisis. The Taliban immediately rolled back women's rights advances and media freedom--among the foremost achievements of the post-2001 reconstruction effort. Most secondary schools for girls were closed, and women were prohibited from working in most government jobs and many other areas. The Taliban beat and detained journalists; many media outlets closed or drastically scaled back their reporting, partly because many journalists had fled the country. The new Taliban cabinet included no women and no ministers from outside the Taliban's own ranks. In many cities, the Taliban searched for, threatened, and sometimes detained or executed former members of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), officials of the former government, or their family members. As the Taliban entered Kabul on August 15, thousands of people tried to flee the country, but chaos and violence at the airport impeded the evacuation of many at-risk Afghans. The Taliban victory propelled Afghanistan from humanitarian crisis to catastrophe, with millions of Afghans facing severe food insecurity due to lost income, cash shortages, and rising food costs. In the six months before the takeover, fighting between government forces and the Taliban caused a sharp rise in civilian casualties from improvised explosive devices (IEDs), mortars, and airstrikes. The Islamic State of Khorasan Province (the Afghan branch of the Islamic State, known as ISKP) carried out attacks on schools and mosques, many targeting minority Hazara Shia. (ANI)
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