Urban Afghans face severe housing shortage

The need for adequate housing overshadows Taliban violence as the greatest concern among Afghan citizens’, according to the World Politics Review.

Rapid population growth, the return of exiled citizens, and a lack of foreign investment in housing has created a volatile living situation, particularly for large cities like Kabul.

The acute housing shortage is also accompanied by scarce sanitation facilities and potable water, as well as daily power cuts.

According to the article: “Afghanistan’s Ministry of Urban development, with World Bank assistance, is now in the process of upgrading formal and informal settlements in Kabul city. This $28.2 million project, which will take at least a few years to implement, will help improve infrastructure and provide basic services like drinking water, sanitation, surface water drainage, concrete roads and street lighting.”

The Afghan government is also advocating improvement, not further destruction of homes: “Given a vast majority lives in these settlements, the solution is to upgrade, not demolish these homes and make more people homeless,” said Yousaf Pashtun, the Afghan minister of urban development, who is an architect and town planner by training.

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Afghan prisoners begin hunger strike to protest executions

Afghan authorities reported on Wednesday that dozens of inmates in Kabul’s Pol-e Charkhi prison went on a hunger strike to protest the 15 executions carried out earlier this week, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Abdul Salam Asmat, the head of Afghanistan’s prisons, said that the prisoners have met with representatives of the International Red Cross to discuss their demands, some of which include receiving a list of inmates who are set to be executed and securing a meeting with members of Parliament.

The prisoners, along with U.N. and Afghan human rights activists, have expressed concern about the judicial processes, and the alleged lack of transparency, that led to the fifteen executions.

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