CNN
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Three bewildered children sit on the roof of a mosque in northern Afghanistan's Baghlan province, blinking to shake the mud from covering their bodies.
Next to them, rescue workers lowered their baby brother, 2-year-old Ariane, onto the roof, wrapping a sheet around his waist that had been used to pull him out of the raging floodwaters below.
“Okay, let's take the rope off your body,” the rescuer says in the video. “Let's bring his mother and let her hold him in her arms and keep him warm.”
At least 300 people have been killed and at least 200 injured in 18 districts in at least three provinces in northern Afghanistan in recent days, according to the United Nations World Food Program (WFP).
Video shows people flailing their limbs in the fast-flowing brown current as a ferocious torrent of mud washes away mud houses and rescuers watch from high ground out of reach. .
The rescued children, aged 3, 5 and 6, were among eight siblings who were at home with their parents in Foro, Baghlan's Burqa district, when the floods struck.
Afghanistan Journalists Group
Three children, ages 3, 5, and 6, are rescued from floods and debris flow on the roof of a mosque in Afghanistan's Baghlan province.
His uncle Barakatullah, the son of local school principal Haji Wakil Besmira, knew something ominous was about to happen late last week, when fierce winds swept through the district and the neighborhood, plunging everything into darkness. He told CNN that it appears to be the case.
“Visibility was so bad we couldn't even see each other,” he said.
Rain then began to fall gently during Friday prayers, a rare occurrence for locals, he said, adding that it doesn't rain this often in this mountainous region, home to about 10,000 people.
As the rain intensified, the situation suddenly “turned dire.”
“People fled to higher ground and took shelter in the mountains and hills. Unfortunately, some were unable to leave their homes and became victims of flooding,” he said.
Aerial photos showed belongings piled up in plastic bags on the roof, including a woman wearing a hood that would cover her whole body even in the event of a disaster.
“Rescued women are being forced to wear muddy clothes, and even babies as young as two or three months old are being forced to wear similarly dirty clothes,” Barakatullah said.
More than 100 people are believed to have been killed in Foro, most of them women and children, he said.
Some burials began over the weekend, but many more are believed to be already buried deep beneath the mud.
From drought and famine to floods
The torrent washed away animals and farmland in a region already facing severe food shortages, said Timothy Anderson, WFP Afghanistan director.
He said it was clear that flood-hit areas were already vulnerable to famine after a harsh summer when scorching heat led to drought.
“It was already a pretty tough situation. And now it's become a catastrophic situation,” he told CNN.
Local residents say they expect flash floods to occur this year. But this year was much worse than that.
Mr Anderson said the loss of home and land was devastating for the survivors, who were already among the poorest people in the country.
“When people lose any livestock, it becomes their real livelihood,” he says.
Road access to the worst-hit areas has been cut off by flooding, forcing WFP to use donkeys to deliver supplies.
WFP distributed high-energy biscuits and food to children on the first day. They also help local bakeries provide free bread. In the coming days, the team will begin distributing food to feed families for a month, but it's unclear what will happen next.
Mr Anderson said 17 joint assessment teams were being deployed to the region with other UN partners. He said it would take four to five days for teams to properly assess the impact of the flooding on people, homes and infrastructure.
Atif Aryan/AFP/Getty Images
Workers repair roads destroyed by floods in Narin district, Baghlan province, May 12, 2024.
This latest natural disaster comes on the heels of a drought in Afghanistan and is seen as an example of the climate crisis hitting those who are contributing the least to rising global temperatures.
“They are not net emitters of carbon dioxide,” said WFP's Anderson. “This is a subsistence farming community and society. So they are bearing the brunt even though they are not necessarily contributing significantly to this problem.”
He said efforts have been made to help communities capture rainfall with dams and irrigation canals to sustain crops during recent dry months. Now, those efforts have gone to waste, and new challenges have arisen.
“The needs are enormous, and not just in Afghanistan. The world is witnessing the effects of larger and more severe phenomena such as droughts and rain cyclones,” Anderson said.
Richard Bennett, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, said the recent floods were “a stark reminder of Afghanistan's vulnerability to the climate crisis”.
And Teresa Anderson, ActionAid International's global climate justice leader, said in a statement on Sunday that “the climate crisis continues to rear its ugly head.”
“With this incident, Afghanistan joins a long list of countries in the Global South suffering from flooding this year,” she said.