Hi everyone! To start off the week, let me share with you what I have gathered from various news websites. According to IQAir, Afghanistan is the 5th most polluted country in the world, as seen in the screenshot below. This platform will be a dominant site that I will refer to, to set the context of future discussions.
As of today, Afghanistan’s PM2.5 concentration (an indicator to measure air pollution) is 9.3 times above the World Health Organization’s air quality guideline value. You might be disillusioned at first, since the green colour shadowing Afghanistan might indicate a good value, as shown on the label at the bottom of the screenshot. This was a mistake I made earlier as well. What you should be focusing on is the number in the circles around the region. As seen in the circle hovering around Kabul, the air quality index right now is 173. This is unhealthy, since the satisfactory AQI value should be a value below 100.
Some news headlines tend to suggest that air pollution in Afghanistan is more deadlier than the war. Kabul is home to around 6 million people. Many children and elderly fall victim to the smog and smoke that lie over the city. As of 2017, more than 26000 people have died from polluted-related illnesses, whereas only less than 3500 civilians died as a result of the Afghan War. Some Afghan officials have pointed out that fighting pollution is as important as fighting terrorism. But how can these people afford to fight two wars at once? Approximately 20 patients would visit the hospital for respiratory diseases caused by air pollution on a daily basis.
Apart from air pollution, Kabul’s refugee camps are home to many families, who have no proper sanitation or water systems. They are surrounded by garbage, and they utilize any cloth, plastics, paper, or sticks to use as fuel to keep them warm. In case you did not know, Kabul experiences a semiarid climate, where temperatures can reach below zero degrees during the winter months. Water pollution is also another major area of concern for the region that experiences low rainfall. Coupled with irregular use of groundwater and insufficient water management infrastructures, many fall victim to illnesses caused by contaminated water.
Unfortunately, many women and children are more vulnerable to pollution than men, because they stay longer at home. It seems ironic that staying at home can expose you to danger, but as explained by the EMRO, being at home exposes people to Household Air Pollution, which can contribute to pre-term birth, stunting, and low birth rate. In the next post for the week, I will be summarizing 3 research papers conducted by environmentalists to learn about the sufferings of these Afghan people.
See you in the next one! ✿
References
AQI (2022) Air Quality in Afghanistan. 18 January. Available from: https://www.iqair.com/us/afghanistan [Accessed: 18 January 2022].
EMRO (n. d.) Afghanistan. World Health Organization Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean. Available from: http://www.emro.who.int/afg/programmes/eh.html#:~:text=In%20Afghanistan%2C%20it%20is%20estimated,over%2011%20000%20deaths%20annually.&text=Women%20and%20children%20are%20at,at%20home%20more%20than%20men. [Accessed: 18 January 2022].
Faiez, R. (2019) In Afghanistan’s Capital, Air Pollution May Be Even Deadlier Than War. 14 November. Available from: https://thediplomat.com/2019/11/in-afghanistans-capital-air-pollution-may-be-even-deadlier-than-war/ [Accessed: 18 January 2022].
German Press Agency (2021) Air Pollution Killed Almost 5,000 People in Afghanistan in 2020, Health Ministry Says. 13 January. Daily Sabah. Available from: https://www.dailysabah.com/world/asia-pacific/air-pollution-killed-almost-5000-people-in-afghanistan-in-2020-health-ministry-says [Accessed: 18 January 2022].
Petrov, V. P., Ali, M., Weinbaum, M.G., Allchin, F. R., Dupree, N. H.& Dupree, L. (2021) Afghanistan. 2 November. Encyclopedia Britannica. Available from: https://www.britannica.com/place/Afghanistan [Accessed: 18 January 2022].
Sadat, S. K. (2020) Afghanistan: Air Pollution More Dangerous than Civil War. 2 January. Available from: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/afghanistanair-pollution-more-dangerous-than-civil-war/1690496 [Accessed: 18 January 2022].