Afghanistan: Humanitarian Challenges and ICRC Response

The drawdown of forces from Afghanistan impacts ICRC as it has around 1800 staff on the ground in Afghanistan. 2014 is indeed the deadline and as we speak the drawdown is taking place. There are lots of logistic operations going on across the country. Any change in the security scenario has implications for ICRC as humanitarian actors and for the economic and security landscape as well. Afghan National Army is increasingly taking over the security operations, but there is lot of unrest. About 20,000-50,000 incidents take place per year in Afghanistan. Civilian causalities are high. In 2012 there have been about 7,000 civilian causalities.There are also casualtiessuffered by ISAF and ANSF. What we see is a volatile situation and a resilient armed opposition.