World Food Program appeals for $19 million to provide emergency food in quake-hit Afghanistan

ISLAMABAD (AP) — The United Nations' World Food Program on Wednesday appealed for $19 million to provide emergency assistance to tens of thousands of people affected by a series of devastating earthquakes and aftershocks that has rocked western Afghanistan.

Ana Maria Salhuana, deputy country director of the World Food Program in Afghanistan, said it was helping survivors but it urgently needed more funding because “we are having to take this food from an already severely underfunded program.”

The group said it is working to provide emergency food assistance to 100,000 people in the region.

“Disasters like these earthquakes pound communities who are already barely able to feed themselves back into utter destitution," the WFP said.