Every year hundreds of people die due to food shortage of and freezing weather in winter. Thus, the government was always late in their response to the need of most vulnerable and excluded people living under worn tents in camps or in urban areas in winter. Due to avalanches and heavy snowfalls, most of the roads to largely populated provinces are blogged and the prices of food items increase that affect severely the poor families with no source of income for their livelihood.

The freezing and heaviest snowfalls last 15 years killed dozens of displaced children in urban and other temporary settlements or tents across the country. In response, this year before the beginning of heavy snowfall and freezing temperature, humanitarian agencies, including people themselves are preparing to take informed measurements for their survival. The worries is largely with those who are living under the worn tents or temporary camps and that those who have covered their shelters with thin tarpaulin that serves as a roof are held fast by round patties of cow muck and worn tires of motorcycles or auto cars.

Additionally, winter won't make difference for all those who live with full facilities of life but makes worst difference for all those who live a life of hand to mouth, particularly in winter. Despite billions of dollars in aid that have flowed in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, Afghanistan still remains one of the poorest countries in the world due to corruption and lack of transparency in development program activities.
The cold nights of winter have already begun with freezing temperature.

The children asking for Khiarat on the streets are spending their nights across the packed-clay floors in bare feet or plastic slippers. They are starving and shivering under snowfall in the days with no food or proper clothing but pass the worst at nights with empty stomach.

The Washington Times report on 12-Dec-2012 appeals that the displaced families living under worn tents are in severe condition, especially 400,000 people who live in some of the most remote mountainous areas of northern and central Afghanistan.

The internally displaced are often among the most dispossessed, living in abject poverty in makeshift housing with little access to sanitation or medical care. They get only nominal help from the Afghan refugee ministry and limited, though regular assistance from the U.N. refugee agency and other aid groups but too late when they lose at least dozens of lives due to food shortages and other living facilities.

Even after a decade long, multibillion-dollar Western humanitarian relief effort, the displaced remain as miserable and wretched as ever. That was the case last winter, when emergency relief efforts were not mounted in earnest until February, well after the first children had died.

The Afghan government discourages the settlements and does not want them to become permanent, worrying that they will attract even more people. Families consist of 16 people fled their home town years ago. Majority of these families were trapped between NATO coalition airstrikes and night raids on the one hand, and Taliban demands for food and shelter on the other.

The snow has already covered most part of the region that affected mainly the poor, vulnerable and most marginalized families. Poor families living in remote areas with no access to health care facilities are at great risk of pneumonia and measles.

The reports on Pajhwok further adds that more than hundreds of people are facing food shortages currently due to road blockades resulted from heavy snowfall in the remote northeastern province of Badakhshan. Prices of food items, such as flour, rice, ghee and firewood, had increased due the closure of roads and this seriously affects the poor families who have no income for their livelihood. According to Abdul Rauf Rasikh, the governor's spokesperson, the closure of roads had left more than 700,000 families in 10 districts with lack of food supplies and their harsh condition demands serious concern.

In this regard, the U.N reports that twenty percent of Afghanistan's 34 provinces have high-risk areas where now the emergency fuel and medical supplies are in grim need. The disastrous and killing events of last years on poor families indicate that the government must take necessary and informed measurements before the winter victimize children.

In addition, other humanitarian agencies are urged to give best suitable response to the catastrophic events of winter that has already begun. Last year, the heavy snow and avalanches killed dozens of people in across the country, including more than 30, many of them were children who helplessly froze to death due to belated response from the government and other humanitarian bodies on the ground.

These homeless people are mostly those who returned from Pakistan, houses 552 people from 90 families. The majority live in mud huts covered with plastic sheeting or tarps. The mud floors are covered with plastic or old carpeting. They burn scrap wood and dried animal dung to protect their children from the freezing weather. There is no running water and toilets are trenches dug near the makeshift homes.

Indeed, all these families are vulnerable they are living a life of hand to mouth in the absence of job opportunities. They are in serious need of firewood, clothes, blankets and shelter material or food for their survival. Firewood is scarce and expensive, so the huts are heated by burning trash and plastic collected by children. From each hut, blue curls of acrid smoke rise to the overcast skies, contributing to the pall of dust and auto fumes that hangs like a shroud over the city.

As of now, more than two million Afghans are in severe condition from cold, disease and malnutrition. This is an international appeal for funds from the poorest Afghans to help one of the world's poorest countries Afghanistan that has fallen drastically in shortage of its goal and the United Nations, and several humanitarian agencies are all asking for serious concern over these people.

Therefore, the implication emphasizes that the government of Afghanistan, international donors and other relevant humanitarian organizations to immediately launch winter assistance campaign to help ensure adequate planning and preparedness to safeguard the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in risk across Afghanistan over the next few critical months.

If most of the families are not provided with basic needs of life, such as firewood or fuel, blankets, winter cloths, sufficient food items and proper carpet will likely lose their children and their lives at large in the next coming months when the winter starts with heavy snowfalls and disastrous avalanches.