The humanitarian mission in Afghanistan: Yahoo News Explains

Amid the collapse of the Afghan government, deadly terror attacks and an uncertain political future, the humanitarian needs in Afghanistan are as great as they’ve ever been. Crystal A. Wells, media and editorial manager of the International Committee of the Red Cross, explains how organizations like the ICRC continue to operate under extremely dangerous conditions and why they are committed to remaining a neutral party in the conflict.

Video transcript

CRYSTAL A. WELLS: The International Committee of the Red Cross has worked in Afghanistan for more than 30 years. This country has suffered from not just weeks and months of conflict, it's suffered from decades of conflict. So obviously, on August 16, the environment in Afghanistan changed dramatically. But in the weeks leading up to that and the months leading up to that, we saw really heavy fighting that was really street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood.

And the reason why urban warfare is so particularly challenging is basically, because civilian density is so much higher. It's not like we're waging warfare out in a field with forces lined up on one side of the field and the other forces lined up on the other side of the field. When wars break out in cities, it means civilian homes, civilian infrastructure, like hospitals, schools, electricity plants, water plants, all of that gets mixed up with the front line.

Right now we actually aren't seeing a mass exodus across Afghanistan's borders. We are seeing and have seen a lot of displacement within Afghanistan in recent weeks. I think the UN figures put it at about 500,000 newly displaced because of recent fighting. The airport is obviously, a completely heartbreaking situation at Kabul airport. That you see all of this anguish and anxiety and desire to leave the country. And it's heartbreaking to see those scenes unfold. And I think that anxiety and fear is probably replicated across many households in Afghanistan.

A big concern of ours would really be the needs that we know are on the ground today, which are massive. And these exist no matter the political changes that have happened in Kabul. This is the reality for the average Afghan in many places where we work. I think something that can often be misunderstood is neutrality. There is a tendency for people to other one another. To see things as black and white, good and bad. And it's our job as a humanitarian organization to speak to everyone.

And we've had a very long-standing relationship with the Taliban. We have a very good working relationship with the Taliban. This is both the local leadership level, as well as higher up within the Taliban. That dialogue that we've had, doesn't change today. We've worked in areas that they've controlled for years, and to be able to deliver services in Taliban controlled areas, it meant that we needed to speak to them as a neutral humanitarian organization so that our mandate is understood, that we can actually deliver services to people living in those areas.

So today in many ways, that doesn't change for the ICRC. We will continue to speak to the Taliban because ultimately, we want to continue to provide services to the Afghan people.