Russia urges West to release Afghan funds to stem migrants

MOSCOW: The Kremlin has urged Western leaders to unfreeze Afghanistan’s assets to fund humanitarian relief and avert an exodus of migrants to Europe fuelled by the Taliban’s takeover.

The international community does not recognise the Islamist group, which gained control of Afghanistan in August after foreign troops hastily withdrew from a two-decade deployment. More than half of Afghanistan’s 38 million people are facing food shortages, according to the United Nations, with the winter forcing millions to choose between migration and starvation.

Zamir Kabulov, the Kremlin’s envoy to Afghanistan, said that Russia had warned the West its hold on assets and transfers could see thousands of Afghan families "run to Europe this winter". "The West is afraid of migration flows," he told the Russian news agency RIA Novosti.