STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Kate Carey has been listening along with us to Diaa. She is the deputy head of the United Nation Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Afghanistan, and she's in Kabul. Welcome to the program.
KATE CAREY: Thanks very much for having me, Steve.
INSKEEP: I'm just looking at the earthquake epicenter on a map of Afghanistan. It looks rather close to Kabul. It looks that way, but the reality sounds like it's very different.
CAREY: Well, yes, the earthquake actually happened in the eastern region on the border with Pakistan. The epicenter was Nangarhar province. But we felt it also in Kabul on Sunday evening, which gives you an indication of the shaking that the community's experienced, particularly those very close to the center. And obviously, what's been particularly significant about this earthquake is its shallowness. It was only 8 to 10 kilometers deep, which means obviously that the impact on the ground is more keenly felt. So that's a real concern for us right now in the humanitarian community.
INSKEEP: And this is a place where earthquakes happen. I can remember feeling one in that region myself. But it sounds like for the reason you just gave, the impact was especially devastating.
CAREY: Absolutely. Afghanistan sits on three fault lines. And if you look actually in the last four years alone, there have been three earthquakes that have occurred since 2022, all in different parts of the country. We had one in 2023 in Herat, one in 2022 in the southeastern region and now this is in the eastern region. So it really gives you a sense of the vulnerability that Afghanistan has towards natural disasters of this kind.
INSKEEP: Diaa mentioned a detail that is special to Afghanistan. She said because of the rules in Afghanistan, even female aid workers find it hard to reach female victims. What are the rules, and how are they being applied in this situation?
CAREY: Well, just to maybe say that we've been operating in a situation in which there have been various restrictions placed on Afghan women as a whole since the end of 2022. But we've been very clear with the authorities that women are essential to the humanitarian response, to all aspects of the response, be it need assessments, distributions and monitoring. And we will not compromise on that. I do just want to reiterate to your listeners, Steve, that women responders are part of the humanitarian response right now. They're part of the assessment teams. We're deploying female staff from Kabul to Jalalabad and from Jalalabad to the most affected areas all the time. Of course, it's a complicated operating environment for many reasons, which previous interviews have spoken to. But I do just want to get the message out there that this is something that's really important to us.
INSKEEP: Isn't it very difficult for women to travel without a male escort or even to speak in public? Are you just disregarding, pushing back on all that?
CAREY: No. I think we're very clear with the authorities about the importance of Afghan women participating in the response. Yes, it is the case that there is a mahram requirement for Afghan women. It doesn't apply to international female staff. Many of our staff do travel to locations with mahrams. This actually happened, you know, also previous to August 2021 as well. So just something to flag in case listeners aren't aware of that...
INSKEEP: Right.
CAREY: ...Reality. But this is something that we've been contending with for many, many years in Afghanistan as part of the humanitarian response.
INSKEEP: I was thinking about your job title, Office of - for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, and we just heard about the cutback in U.S. aid and the lack of other resources. Do you have sufficient resources to coordinate?
CAREY: No. I mean, we don't have sufficient resources to respond, I think, is the primary point at hand. Just to flag that the humanitarian response is only 28% funded more than halfway through the year. This compares with previous years when we had funding upwards of 75% for the humanitarian response. And we know that since January, a large cohort of our donors have drastically reduced funding availability for Afghanistan. Just maybe to highlight, one particular point of particular concern for us is the impact on health facilities. More than 420 health facilities have closed since the beginning of the year, including 80 in the eastern region alone. And that obviously has a devastating impact on their ability to provide trauma care to those most affected.
INSKEEP: I have an image of people going for hours to find a health facility and finding it's closed. Kate Carey of the United Nations, thanks so much - really appreciate it.
CAREY: Thanks so much.
INSKEEP: She's in Kabul.
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