Air pollution killed around 5,000 people in Afghanistan last year according to the data released by the Afghan Ministry of Public Health. At least 2900 of them died due to respiratory problems and 2072 due to heart diseases.

Surprisingly, the civilian casualties figure due to the war in Afghanistan is lesser than people who die out of air pollution born diseases last year. Kabul, the Afghan capital, remains the worst affected city due to bad air quality.

The report says around 100 people visit the Wazir Akbar Khan Hospital daily for air pollution-related diseases. “The air pollution must reduce so that we prevent the mortality rate of air pollution-related diseases,” Masooma Jafari, the spokeswoman for the Ministry of Public Health, was quoted as saying by TOLOnews.

“Some patients have asthma that is intensified by other diseases. The mortality rate is high and it increases during winter,” Humayun Stanekzai, a doctor at Wazir Akbar Khan Hospital, said. 

The decades of war have affected the efforts to address the air pollution issue in the country, said the National Environmental Protecting Agency. Moreover, the lack of access to electricity and liquid gas also exacerbates the problem in Kabul.

Kabul hosts a big number of internally displaced people from the countryside due to fighting. In winter, they burn plastics, coal, and waste tires to keep themselves warm.