Donors pledge US$1 billion for Afghanistan

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GENEVA/NEW YORK (REUTERS) - Donors have pledged more than a billion US dollars to help Afghanistan, where poverty and hunger have spiralled since the Islamist Taliban took power, and foreign aid has dried up, raising the spectre of a mass exodus.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said it was impossible to say how much of the money had been promised in response to an emergency UN appeal for US$606 million (S$813.29 million) to meet the most pressing needs of a country in crisis.

After decades of war and suffering, Afghans are facing "perhaps their most perilous hour", he said in his opening remarks to a donor conference in Geneva.

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