A father in Kandahar, Afghanistan, has killed his three children because of their dire economic circumstances.
Mullah Abdul Razzaq, the police chief of Dand district of Kandahar province, said that the man killed his kids with a knife and then buried them because they were all forced to beg.
The eldest child was 13 years old, the second was nine years old, and the youngest was six years old.
The police chief said the murders happened on Saturday night, and the father, whose name is Naqibullah, was subsequently arrested by Islamic Emirate forces.
He has confessed to his crimes and reportedly suffers from mental health problems.
Mullah Abdul Razzaq added that people used to humiliate the man because his children were begging.
Officials in Dand district said they exhumed the children’s bodies and buried them again.
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The United Nations warned at the end of last year that Afghanistan’s economy is in “free fall” and if decisive and compassionate action is not taken immediately it may consume the entire population.
The United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, said: “23 million people are facing hunger, malnourished children are overflowing in health facilities, 70 percent of teachers are working without salaries and millions of students are out of schools…
“As the international development support has frozen up, basic social services that all Afghans depend on are collapsing. Families simply do not have the cash for everyday transactions, while the key commodities continue to rise.”
Currently, more than $9.5 billion of Afghanistan’s foreign assets are frozen by the U.S. administration. The Islamic Emirate’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai has said: “The impact of frozen funds is on the common people of Afghanistan.”
