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Fact Sheet: Humanitarian Aid to the Afghan People, October 9, 2001

(Issued by State's Office of International Information Programs) (520)
(begin fact sheet)
This fact sheet summarizes the efforts as of October 9, 2001 to
provide relief assistance to the Afghan people while the United States
and its allies conduct military operations against terrorist
organizations in Afghanistan.
Humanitarian Aid to Afghans Will Continue
-- As the United States and its allies are conducting military strikes
against terrorist organizations in Afghanistan, the United States is
continuing its humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people.
-- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has emphasized that
humanitarian aid would continue, even as the U.S. takes military
action to uproot the terrorists in Afghanistan. Military action, he
said, was intended "to create conditions for sustained anti-terrorist
and humanitarian operations in Afghanistan."
-- During the military strikes, the United States has been dropping
interim food relief, in the form of humanitarian daily rations (HDR)
packets. 37,500 were dropped on October 7, and another 37,500 on
October 8. The HDR packets are an interim measure, until adequate
humanitarian relief can be delivered. As Counselor to the President
Karen Hughes said in a news conference on October 8, "we are going to
be clearing the way so we can deliver humanitarian relief."
-- A convoy of World Food Program trucks carrying 100 tons of wheat
has left Iran, heading for Herat, in western Afghanistan. According to
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, two other larger truck
convoys, carrying wheat, have arrived in northwestern Afghanistan and
in Kabul. These trucks had left on Sunday, October 8, from Pakistan
and Turkmenistan. The United States is also sending 165,000 tons of
food aid to Afghanistan by ship.
US Humanitarian Aid to the Afghan People
-- The United States has been the single largest donor of humanitarian
aid for Afghans for the past several years. In 2000, the U.S.
contributed a total of $113 million in humanitarian aid to Afghans,
both inside Afghanistan, and in refugee camps in neighboring
countries. In 2001, that humanitarian assistance has already topped
$184 million.
-- On October 4, President Bush announced a new contribution of $320
million in humanitarian assistance to Afghans. This assistance
includes food, medicine, blankets and shelter.
-- This assistance is not given to the Taliban or any other faction,
but is distributed through the United Nations, and non-government
organizations. The assistance is distributed in Taliban-controlled and
opposition-controlled areas of the country, wherever the need is
greatest. As President Bush has said, the Afghan people are not our
enemy. Terrorists are our enemy, and the Afghan people have suffered
greatly because of the terrorists in their midst.
Humanitarian Aid and the Campaign Against Terrorism
-- Just as Americans and citizens of 80 other countries were among the
6,000 victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S., the
Afghan people have been the victims of al-Qaida and the Taliban.
-- Millions of Afghans are facing imminent starvation due to four
years of extreme drought, to continuing conflict, and to Taliban
misrule.
-- The U.S. and its allies are working to create conditions on the
ground to make it possible to deliver emergency humanitarian
assistance to the Afghan people.
(end fact sheet)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)