25 October 2001
Relief Agencies Report Getting Aid Into Afghanistan
(Say time running out to get in enough before winter) (770)
By Kathryn McConnell
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- International relief agencies are working around various
obstacles to get food, shelter and sanitation assistance to people in
Afghanistan and in refugee camps in northwest Pakistan, some
non-governmental organization officials say.
Up to 7.5 million Afghans will need food and shelter assistance this
winter, Mark Bartolini, an International Rescue Committee (IRC) vice
president, said at an October 25 Migration Policy Institute forum on
the situation in Afghanistan.
He said that nongovernmental organizations are bringing in food and
materials by land from Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and
Uzbekistan but that "time is running out" to get enough assistance to
the people who need it before winter sets in, particularly in the
colder highland areas.
Bartolini said that the amount needed to stave off famine in the short
term is 52,000 metric tons of food but that food is now arriving only
at the rate of 1,000 tons a month.
Urs Boegli, head of the North American delegation of the International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), said at the forum that although all
ICRC expatriate staff were withdrawn from Afghanistan September 16
after two decades of working in the country, they and staff in other
neighboring countries are in contact with 1,000 Afghan employees
distributing assistance to families of persons with disabilities.
Boegli said, however, that because Afghan ICRC employees' phone calls
are "supervised" and because of logistics problems "our relief
operation is not yet what we want. It is patchy." He said that as
security in Afghanistan continues to degrade, his colleagues find it
difficult to tell how much control local staff have over ICRC's
remaining stock in country. He added that until more assistance gets
into Afghanistan, the ICRC is keeping what it does have for the most
vulnerable groups such as women, children, the elderly, sick people
and people with disabilities, and not for massive distributions.
Boegli said relief groups are using commercial trucks and even donkeys
to transport materials. He added that "as the situation evolves" and
more is known about the condition of airstrips in Afghanistan, aid
agencies may conduct airlifts of materials and "low-level" food drops.
He cautioned that one danger of high-altitude drops in largely rural
areas is recipients' exposure to a multitude of landmines.
Bartolini reported that 500 to 1,000 refugees a day are crossing into
northwest Pakistan, with spikes immediately after heavy bombing. He
said problems with refugee camps include very low water tables in the
region requiring drilling as deep as 1,000 feet to locate well water.
Some local tribal leaders want to limit the size of camps, he said,
and require that all aid coming into the camps go through them.
People coming into "established" refugee camps to join their families
are putting pressure on education and health services, added Sippi
Azberbaijani-Moghaddam, technical adviser for the Women's Commission
for Refugee Women and Children based in Peshawar, Pakistan. She noted
that child labor is a "big problem" in the camps.
Afghan women refugees and those who are internally displaced face
particular difficulties accessing assistance services, said
Azberbaijani-Moghaddam. According to the World Bank, 88 percent of
Afghan women are illiterate and thus cannot read the forms required to
receive aid, Azberbaijani-Moghaddam said. They then must depend on
others for help completing forms, others who then may expect payment
in food rations or sexual favors, she said. Many northern women who
speak Uzbek also have problems communicating with the mostly Dari- or
Pashtu-speaking aid workers, she said.
Azberbaijani-Moghaddam added that women in refugee camps also face
domestic violence from both men and women, asserting that widows are
sometimes considered financial burdens by other members of the family.
Women-led organizations in Afghanistan and Pakistan are providing
services to Afghan women sometimes more effectively than organizations
led by men, she said. She added that the Women's Commission is
developing a list of women's organizations and individuals who can be
contacted when other agencies begin to plan strategy for the next
stage of the humanitarian assistance process and for cooperation with
a new Afghan government.
The IRC's Bartolini said that while agencies are already thinking
about post-conflict forms of assistance, such as seeds for farmers and
food for work programs, the focus now is on "immediate needs."
"There is a strong case to be made for renewing a strong international
[humanitarian assistance] effort," the ICRC's Boegli added.
(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International
Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Website:
http://usinfo.state.gov)
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