The top UN envoy for Afghanistan has said that 28 million Afghan people will need life-saving humanitarian assistance this year.

Speaking in a Security Council meeting, UN secretary-general's special representative for Afghanistan Roza Otunbayeva said that almost 6 million people are one step away from famine-like conditions.

She warned that "funding for Afghanistan is likely to drop" if women were not allowed to work as the Taliban-run administration's bans against women working in NGOs are serious obstacles to reaching vulnerable populations.