theguardian: Dozens of Children die in Afghanistan cold

More than 40 people, most of them children, have frozen to death in what has been Afghanistan's coldest inter in years. The government has recorded 41 deaths from freezing in three provinces: Kabul, Ghor and Badakhshan, said health ministry spokesman Ghulam Sakhi Kargar. All but four of those deaths were children, he said. Twenty-four were in the capital, Kabul, mostly in camps for people who have fled the fighting elsewhere in the country. Kabul has been experiencing its worst cold snap and heaviest snowfall in 15 years, according to the national weather center. It said the weather was expected to improve by the end of the week. Heavy snowfall in Day Kundi province caused an avalanche late on Sunday in the Sang-i-Takht district that damaged dozens of homes and shops. The avalanche caused no injuries, said Nasrullah Sadiqizada, a member of parliament from the central province. The hardest hit have been people living in tents in a number of camps around the capital. The deaths in these camps, so close to the offices of international organizations overseeing billions of dollars in aid to the country, have shocked many in Kabul. The United Nations and US aid agency have started distributing extra blankets, tarpaulins and fuel to people living in 40 camps throughout the city, the US embassy said in a statement last week. Most of those in the camps have fled from Helmand and Kunduz provinces, though some are Afghans who have returned from years of living in Iran and Pakistan to find themselves homeless, the statement said.