The Afghan government has dismissed as baseless an Amnesty International report that blames the deaths of 17 Afghans, mostly children, in displaced person camps on poor government management.
Afghanistan's National Disaster Management Authority (ANDMA) deputy chief said the report was baseless and the government has provided adequate resources to the displaced.
"The government and non-government organisations have provided food and fuel for the refugees in the country," ANDMA deputy Mohammad Aslam Sayas said Wednesday.
Amnesty said in the report that the deaths occurred in the first two weeks of January in Kabul and Herat provinces where most of the country's half a million internally-displaced people live in makeshift camps.
"These deaths were a preventable tragedy," Amnesty's Deputy Asia Pacific Director Polly Truscott said in a statement.
Last winter about 100 people, mostly children and the elderly, died in the camps. The Afghan government and international donors had been urged to prevent a repeat of the tragedy.
The latest deaths show "the inadequate co-ordination of winter assistance to hundreds of thousands of people living in displacement camps across the country," Truscott said.
"The fact that children and the elderly are among the dead highlights the need to protect those groups that are most vulnerable to the harsh winter conditions," she added.
In Herat, assistance reached refugees returning to Afghanistan from abroad, but aid to the internally displaced was apparently blocked after pressure from the provincial governor's office, Amnesty said.
Local authorities are said to be concerned that offering aid to displaced people will encourage them to stay in camps instead of returning to their home provinces.