World News in Brief: Afghanistan education, Myanmar flooding, Syria recovery, homecare workers in… — UN News

Five years since the Taliban seized power in Kabul, life for some Afghans has improved while many others suffer growing hardship. Although many families in rural Afghanistan struggle to secure food and water, the UN’s aid coordination office spokesperson Olga Cherevko said on Thursday that the chief concern is the continuing ban on girls’ education. “They told me that basically they had lost hope for their daughter’s future and of course for themselves,” Ms. Cherevko told UN News. “That really stayed with me because this is also a community struggling simply to make ends meet and to survive.” The senior humanitarian told UN News that Afghan women today have fewer opportunities to earn income than men, because of increasing restrictions placed on them by the de facto authorities. As a result, women are finding it harder to support their families, while also having to cope with reduced opportunities to participate in life outside their homes, Ms. Cherevko said. In an assessment of the situation in Afghanistan on Thursday, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said that the past five years of Taliban rule had brought a reduction in conflict and “tangible benefits” for some. But significant obstacles to lasting stability remain, particularly the “increasingly damaging restrictions” on women and girls and ongoing terrorism concerns. “The last five years have…