Afghanistan was already facing severe crises when it was rocked by another devastating earthquake, but this time there are fewer resources to muster after foreign funding was slashed to the bone this year.
Less international aid "means fewer ambulances, fewer doctors, fewer nurses, fewer midwives" to send into the battered farming communities of Afghanistan's mountainous east, said Arthur Comon, deputy director of operations at the nongovernmental group Premiere Urgence Internationale (PUI).
The humanitarian sector has issued repeated calls since the start of the year for help in Afghanistan, which faces soaring poverty, worsening drought and the mass return of migrants expelled from neighboring countries.
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