Afghanistan

KABUL, Apr 18 (NNN-ANA) – The number of flood-related casualties in Afghanistan in the past few days has increased, as 70 people have been confirmed dead and more than 50 others sustained injuries, spokesman for the national disaster authority, Mullah Janan Saeq, said.

“The death toll from the floods over the past six days has risen to 70, while another 56 are injured,” Saeq told media, last night.

Earlier, the official confirmed 33 dead and 27 injured a couple of days ago.

KABUL, Jan 2 (NNN-ANA) – Afghanistan’s exports in 2023 reached nearly two billion U.S. dollars, spokesman for the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, Akhundzada Abdul Salam Jawad, said.

“The volume of Afghanistan’s exports in the past year reached 1.9 billion U.S. dollars, and the figure shows a two percent increase, which is equal to 41 million U.S. dollars, against the export volume in 2022,” the private television channel, Tolonews, quoted Jawad as saying today.

KABUL, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- About 800,000 Afghan refugees have returned to their homeland Afghanistan since October, Afghan caretaker government chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.

"Since October, around 800,000 refugees have returned home, with half of them from Pakistan," the local television channel Tolonews quoted Mujahid as saying.

The majority of the remaining 400,000 others have returned from Iran and thousands of others from Türkiye, Mujahid said.

KABUL, Nov. 25 (Xinhua) -- Afghan authorities will build at least 285 health centers in several provinces of Afghanistan, local TOLOnews TV channel on Saturday quoted the country's top health official as saying.

Qalandar Ibad, acting minister of public health, said the ministry is urging trained and professional doctors abroad to come back to their homeland amid a shortage of medics, the media outlet reported.

FAIZABAD, Afghanistan, Nov 13 (NNN-ANA) – Police have arrested a drug smuggler and seized a variety of illegal drugs from his possession, in north Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province, a statement from the provincial police office said, today.

The arrest was made in Darayem district yesterday, and the contraband included opium poppy, hashish and heroin, the statement said.

In similar operations, the counter-narcotics police set on fire nearly two tonnes of illegal drugs in the central Daykundi province, last week.

FAIZABAD, Afghanistan, Nov 8 (NNN-ANA) – A child lost his life and two others were injured, due to a landmine blast in north Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province, a statement by the provincial police office said today.

The incident took place in Jarm district yesterday afternoon, the statement said, without providing more details.

A similar incident claimed the lives of two children and injured another in Darzab district, of the northern Jawzjan province, a month ago.

KABUL, Nov 7 (NNN-ANA) – An international conference, on the economic development of Afghanistan, kicked off in the country’s capital, Kabul yesterday, attracting some 500 scholars and guests from home and overseas.

Themed “Creating the Afghan Economic Miracle,” the three-day conference held by the Ibn-E-Sina Research and Development Centre, will cover agriculture, education, health care and other topics.

KABUL, Nov. 5 (Xinhua) -- The opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has dropped by an estimated 95 percent since the country's caretaker government imposed a drug ban in April 2022, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said Sunday.

According to the organization's report, the opium cultivation of the once world's biggest opium producer fell from 233,000 hectares to just 10,800 hectares in 2023, leading to a 95-percent drop in the supply of opium, from 6,200 tonnes in 2022 to 333 tonnes in 2023.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban have freed an Afghan activist who campaigned for the education of girls, a local nonprofit organization said Thursday. Matiullah Wesa was arrested seven months ago and spent 215 days in prison, according to the group, Pen Path.

Wesa has been outspoken in his demands for girls to have the right to go to school and repeatedly called on the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan to reverse its bans on female education.

KABUL, Oct 25 (NNN-ANA) – More than 50,000 Afghan refugees have returned from Iran to their homeland, Afghanistan, in the past month, reported the state-run news agency Bakhtar, today.

In the past month, a total of 57,382 Afghan refugees have returned, after years of stay in neighbouring Iran, the report said.

A few days ago, more than 5,100 Afghan refugees returned from neighbouring Pakistan.