President Ashraf Ghani on Friday met with a large number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and said their plight is not being forgotten, the Presidential Palace said in a statement. 

The meeting took place at the Presidential Palace in Kabul and Ghani reportedly said government is committed to solving their problems and that this issue is a priority for government. 

According to the statement, Ghani said the reason that many people think that not enough attention is being paid to this issue is because government has had to focus on Afghanistan’s survival. 

Speaking about the ceasefire with the Taliban, he said the truce provides a good opportunity for peace in the country. 

Ghani directed the responsible organizations to work on addressing problems being faced by displaced people and to identify the priorities and then report back to the Presidential Palace. 

This come after the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on May 22 that more than 108,000 people have been displaced in Afghanistan since the beginning of the year due to conflict and natural disasters. The report also stated that a total of 108,440 people were displaced between January 1 and May 13.

That is 22,000 more than the previous week. The highest number of displaced people was in eastern Ghazni, where there were some 10,000 people, followed by northern Baghlan with more than 4,000.

More than 10,000 people were displaced temporarily due to the Taliban taking over parts of Farah city on May 15 while over 445,000 people were displaced due to conflict in the country in 2017.