[JustTheNews] Millions of Afghans could face starvation this winter, according to director of U.N.'s World Food Program.
With Afghanistan facing a humanitarian crisis this winter in the wake of the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from the country, Taliban
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officials are warning — or threatening — that unless Western governments and financial institutions release frozen foreign reserves and aid funds, the West could be flooded with a tide of Afghan migrants colonists.
Roughly $430 million is being held at the German Commerzbank and $94 million in the Bundesbank, Germany's central bank. Another $660 million is being held by the Bank for International Settlements, a conglomerate of worldwide central banks located in Switzerland
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The bulk of the contested funds, roughly $9.5 billion held by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, is frozen by the U.S. Treasury Department and is unlikely to be released any time soon.
In 2020, Afghan reserves including gold and U.S. dollars held in U.S. and European banks totaled $9.6 billion, according to the World Bank.
"Total reserves comprise holdings of monetary gold, special drawing rights, reserves of IMF members held by the IMF, and holdings of foreign exchange under the control of monetary authorities," the World Bank explains.
Since the Taliban takeover, the World Bank has withheld financial aid. The International Monetary Fund has also withheld drawing rights to $347 million.
The IMF is "guided by the views of the international community," the fund said in August. "There is currently a lack of clarity within the international community regarding recognition of a government in Afghanistan, as a consequence of which the country cannot access the Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) or other IMF resources."
At the end of August, Taliban leaders attempted to access its central bank's reserves, only to learn that they couldn't access them, the Financial Times reported.
"The money belongs to the Afghan nation," Afghanistan's Finance Ministry spokesperson Ahmad Wali Haqmal told Rooters. "Just give us our own money. Freezing this money is unethical and is against all international laws and values."
Despite a windfall of billions of dollars' worth of U.S. military equipment and weaponry left behind by the Biden administration, the same old faces in slightly different places, the same old ideas, the same old graft
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, the "situation is desperate, and the amount of cash is dwindling," Afghan Central Bank board member Shah Mehrabi told Rooters. 
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