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AFGHANISTAN: Displaced families in Farah need urgent help

KABUL, 4 November 2007 (IRIN) - Hundreds if not thousands of recently displaced people in southwest Afghanistan are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance and protection, displaced families and provincial aid workers told IRIN on 4 November.

Due to insecurity, there are no reliable figures on the exact number of people who have abandoned their in the Gulistan and Bakwa districts of Farah Province and sought temporary refuge in other parts of the isolated province.

However, Aleem Siddique, a spokesman for the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan UNAMA), said “about 500 families might have been displaced” as a result of fighting.

Afghan officials, including President Hamid Karzai, have acknowledged that Taliban insurgents have overrun at least two districts in Farah Province.

Immediately after Afghan government forces lost control of Gulistan District on 2 November, insurgents reportedly executed several civilians accusing them of being government spies, the Afghanistan Interior Ministry (MoI) and NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a joint statement on Sunday.

“This is an intolerable outrage designed to terrorise the local population,” read the MoI-ISAF press release.

Foreign fighters

Provincial officials say the recent spate of violence across southern, south-western and central-western Afghanistan has been exacerbated by numerous foreign fighters who have joined and supported Taliban rebels.

“Foreign fighters in particular have been cruel and have widely committed violence against the local populace,” said Gulam Nabi Hukak, head of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) in neighbouring Herat Province.

Hukak accused Taliban fighters and their foreign supporters of “repeated and deliberate” violation of international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions in their fighting tactics.

No Taliban spokesman was immediately available for comment.

No aid for displaced

As the clashes continue, many families have spent days on the move without aid.

“Our children are hungry and we live in the open air,” said one displaced man who had come to Farah city in search of food for his family.

Gulam Rasoul, provincial head of the Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS) in Farah, conceded that no aid had been delivered to displaced families, at least by ARCS.

“We do not have adequate resources to assist needy people,” Rasoul told IRIN, adding that the province’s response capacity was weak and not in a position to meet the current needs of the displaced.

Inaccessibility

With an intensifying insurgency and widespread criminal activities, Farah is inaccessible to the UN and aid agencies.

The UN, nonetheless, is working with provincial authorities to identify and assist conflict-affected people in the province, said Siddique of UNAMA.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the UN and ARCS have repeatedly requested all warring parties, particularly the Taliban, to allow aid workers access to all vulnerable people in volatile and conflict-affected areas.

So far, Taliban rebels have not responded to these pleas and aid workers’ access has remained restricted.

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Copyright © IRIN 2007
This material comes to you via IRIN, the humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the United Nations or its Member States.
IRIN is a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.