Red Cross sounds alarm on rising casualties in 'ignored' Afghanistan

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The humanitarian situation in Afghanistan is in a "downward spiral", the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned on Friday, as he sounded the alarm on rising attacks against medical facilities.

"There are more displaced people, more war-wounded and more disabled people," ICRC president Peter Maurer said at the end of a visit to Afghanistan - the organization's largest operation.

"Humanitarian concerns are growing, yet international attention is dwindling. It seems that the more the Afghan people suffer, the less attention there is on them."

An estimated one million people are displaced within Afghanistan, some having been uprooted multiple times.

The Taliban, ousted from power in a U.S.-led military intervention in 2001, has been waging a violent insurgency to try to topple Afghanistan's Western-backed government and re-establish a fundamentalist Islamic regime. - Read More at the Reuters

Red Cross sounds alarm on rising casualties in 'ignored' Afghanistan

U.S. military punishes more than a dozen for Afghan hospital air strike - More