The UN secretary-general's special representative for Afghanistan said on Tuesday that the situation on the ground in the country was dire.
"I cannot overstate to the council my concern regarding the present situation in Afghanistan. All of the major trends -- politics, security, the peace process, the economy, the humanitarian emergency, and COVID -- all of these trends are negative or stagnant," Deborah Lyons, the top UN envoy for Afghanistan, told the Security Council in a briefing.
"If there is a sense of hope, it indeed resides in a fact that previous worse-case predictions did not materialize. But the relentless spirit of the Afghans and their incredible resilience is being severely tested and the possible slide toward dire scenarios is undeniable," she said.
What happens in Afghanistan remains of global consequence and the Security Council needs to be fully informed of the gravity of the present situation, she added.
