UN chief urges security council not to ‘abandon’ Afghanistan

Guterres ‘particularly concerned’ by rights violations against women and girls of Afghanistan as Taliban seizes Kabul.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called on the Security Council to “use all tools at its disposal to suppress the global terrorist threat in Afghanistan” and guarantee that basic human rights will be respected. An emergency UNSC meeting on Afghanistan was held on Monday at the UN headquarters in New York after the Taliban entered Kabul and President Ashraf Ghani left Afghanistan on Sunday as the group took over the country 20 years after they were overthrown by a US-led invasion. “We are receiving chilling reports of severe restrictions on human rights throughout the country. I am particularly concerned by accounts of mounting human rights violations against the women and girls of Afghanistan,” he told the 15-member council.