The Taliban released 40 more Afghan government prisoners on Thursday, its spokesman said, adding it will accelerate the process to save prisoners from coronavirus. Now Government has also released hundreds of prisoners because Afghanistan's healthcare system has been battered by decades of conflict and political instability.
Suhail Shaheen, a spokesman for Taliban's political office in Qatar, said on Twitter that the new releases happened in northern Kunduz province.
This brings the total number of prisoners released by the Taliban to 100. Earlier, they released 20 prisoners in southern Kandahar province and 40 in eastern Laghman province.
The US-Taliban deal stipulated the release of up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners and 1,000 Afghan government prisoners by March 10, when intra-Afghan talks were scheduled to begin.
The Afghan government has released 550 Taliban prisoners under a presidential decree that expects release of 1,500 prisoners.
The government has said that the remaining could be freed as intra-Afghan talks begin.
Afghanistan’s healthcare system has been battered by decades of conflict and political instability. The ongoing coronavirus global pandemic is making everything difficult for the country’s medical workers. The officials has now made a decision to free all the prisoners that are in prison in order to stop the wide spread of the infection and also to help the hospital’s current situation in order not to crowd everywhere with more patient who has recently contacted the virus from prison or anywhere.Though there is has been a lockdown restriction measure that has been made in the country and it still haven’t changed anything.Now, the government is releasing prisoners to stop the virus from spreading in its cramped prisons and to prevent hospitals from becoming even more overwhelmed.
