Military

TDATE=01/15/02

YPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

NUMBER=2-285265

TITLE=U-N AID / AFGHANISTAN (L ONLY)

BYLINE=DALE GAVLAK

DATELINE=GENEVA

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: Despite heavy snows and rain in Afghanistan, United Nations relief agencies say they are still able to distribute food and supplies to Afghans in need. Dale Gavlak has more from Geneva, Switzerland, where many of the agencies have their headquarters.

TEXT: United Nations aid agencies say people in the west of the country initially welcomed the heavy downpours of rain and snow -- the first substantial precipitation in the area after three years of drought. But by Saturday they had had enough. Many tents and mud huts in camps in Herat had collapsed under the deluge.

Aid groups are now working to bring in tarpaulin from nearby Iran to re-roof shelters that suffered damage.

A spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, Jean-Philippe Chauzy, says the floods have not halted the agency's relief efforts, but they have prevented some Afghans from getting the help they need.

/// CHAUZY ACT ///

The snow and rain have triggered some landslides, north and south of Herat. That is not hindering for the moment our relief efforts because our relief effort is coming from the west -- Iran. It has put a stop to the people who were arriving on a regular basis to Herat from the north and south. These people are now probably staying in their villages because they know the roads have been cut.

/// END ACT ///

World Food Program officials say the rain and snow are also complicating the delivery of food aid in the north of Afghanistan. Christiane Bertiaume of the W-F-P says icy conditions have made delivering food more treacherous, but the deliveries have continued.

/// BERTIAUME ACT ///

It obviously made things more difficult, more arduous, and more dangerous for the trucks. But we haven't stopped, no.

/// END ACT ///

Meanwhile, in the southeast of the country, about 13-thousand Afghans are now in a no-man's land on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan and more people are turning up every day. U-N refugee agency spokesman Chris Janowski says the people want to get across the border in the hope they will get more aid than is available on the Afghan side of the border.

/// JANOWSKI ACT ///

We have reports that there maybe be as many as 40-thousand people behind them, basically trying to get out of Spin Boldak -- makeshift camps on the Afghan side of the border -- and get over to Pakistan since there is absolutely no aid in Spin Boldak.

/// END ACT ///

Mr. Janowski says the U-N high commissioner for refugees is pressing Pakistani border officials and authorities in Islamabad to allow the refugees to enter U-N run camps in Pakistan. (Signed)

NEB/DG/KL/RH