Over 118,000 people fled conflict in Afghanistan since beginning of 2016

The United Nations and its humanitarian partners said that more than 118,000 people have fled conflict in Afghanistan during the first four months of this year, a deputy UN spokesman said here Monday.

In Kunduz, northeastern Afghanistan, more than 22,400 people have been displaced in April alone, Farhan Haq said at a daily news briefing here.

"Humanitarian partners reported that insecurity and access constraints remain the major challenges to the delivery of assistance," he said.

A total of 20 million U.S. dollars from the Common Humanitarian Fund has been allocated to provide emergency trauma services as well as lifesaving aid for displaced communities, he said.

The newly formed Afghan government is facing severe tests in 2016, and it must manage its difficult transition by overcoming political, economic and security challenges, a top UN official in the Asian country said in March.

"In 2016, Afghanistan is being as severely tested as it was in 2015, by the task of managing its difficult transition with its interrelated political, economic and security challenges," Nicholas Haysom, the UN secretary-general's special representative and head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, said while briefing the UN Security Council on the current situation in Afghanistan.

"For 2016, survival will be an achievement" for the new government, he said, adding that "Some may criticize this benchmark as being low, but survival does not mean inaction, or merely treading water," but active engagement in confronting the five challenges.

The Taliban, emboldened by its military successes in Kunduz and elsewhere, will continue to test the Afghan security forces across the country, he noted.

Yet in this first year of independent command, the Afghan security forces have largely held their own in the face of continuing high rates of attrition, he added.

The Taliban have been battling the government for 15 years and after the United States and its NATO ally formally ended their combat mission at the end of 2014, the emboldened insurgents have been spreading their footprint across the country.

Currently, Afghanistan is also confronting extremists from the Islamic State group.

"The stakes are high, not least because the loss of a provincial capital, even if temporarily, would have significant repercussions for the National Unity Government's political standing," the UN envoy said. Endit