Kabul, Dec 16 (IANS): An Afghan trading company has provided humanitarian assistance to more than 7,000 teachers in the northern Balkh province, an official of the firm announced on Thursday.

The package assistance includes a bag of flour and a can of cooking oil, Mujtaba Usmani, the head of the Bashir Nawed Shirkat company, said, adding that the distribution began on Wednesday and would last to cover the needy teachers elsewhere in the province, reports Xinhua news agency.

Usmani also stated that the trading company would also provide food assistance to some 1,000 tutors in religious schools in the province in near future.

Providing assistance to the teachers in Balkh province by the local trading company is taking place amid poverty and food insecurity in Afghanistan as the establishment has yet to pay the salaries of civil servants.

Welcoming the assistance provided by a local company, Balkh Governor Mawlawi Qudratullah Abu Hamza assured that the administration would soon pay the salaries of government employees including the teachers.

The official also urged rich people to help needy families.

UN aid agencies have reportedly warned of a humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan if necessary aid supplies are not sent to the war-torn country.

Since the August 15 takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban and the formation of the Taliban-led caretaker government on September 7, the country's humanitarian situation has worsened.

In response, world governments cut off Afghanistan's access to international funding and froze the central bank's roughly $10 billion in assets held abroad, in a bid to stop Taliban from accessing that money.

According to UN estimates, some 23 million people are in desperate need of food, the $20 billion economy could shrink by $4 billion or more and 97 per cent of the 38 million population are at risk of sinking into poverty.