UN set to appeal for halt in the bombing
Oct 20, 2001 06:36 PM
by MKRamadoss
I am very heartened by the following report. Anyone who has the welfare of
our brothers and sisters cannot but support the move.
mkr
-----------------------
UN set to appeal for halt in the bombing
War on Terrorism: Observer special
Islam and the West: Observer special
Jason Burke, Peshawar
Sunday October 21, 2001
The Observer
The United Nations is set to issue an
unprecedented
appeal to the United States and its
coalition allies to
halt the war on Afghanistan and allow
time for a huge
relief operation.
UN sources in Pakistan said growing
concern over
the deteriorating humanitarian situation
in the country -
in part, they say, caused by the
relentless bombing
campaign - has forced them to take the
radical step.
Aid officials estimate that up to 7.5
million Afghans
might be threatened with starvation.
'The situation is completely untenable
inside
Afghanistan. We really need to get our
point across
here and have to be very bold in doing
it. Unless the
[US air] strikes stop, there will be a
huge number of
deaths,' one UN source said.
The move will embarrass Clare Short, the
International
Development Secretary, who said last
week that there
was no 'cause and effect' between the
bombing and
the ability of aid agencies to deliver
much-needed
food and shelter.
Aid workers yesterday strongly rejected
Short's
statements. 'Basically the bombing makes
it difficult to
get enough supplies in. It is as simple
as that,' an
Islamabad-based aid official told The
Observer .
Dominic Nutt, a spokesman for the
British charity
Christian Aid, called Short's remarks
sickening.
'Needy people are being put at risk by
government
spin-doctors who are showing a callous
disregard for
life,' he said. 'To say that there is no
link is not just
misleading but profoundly dangerous.'
Christian Aid
report 600 people have already died in
the Dar-e-Suf
region of northern Afghanistan due to
starvation,
malnutrition and related diseases.
Other agencies confirmed that the sick,
the young and
the old are already dying in refugee
camps around the
northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.
The World Food Programme has calculated that
52,000 tonnes of wheat must be
distributed in
Afghanistan each month to stave off mass
starvation.
Since the aid programme was restarted -
on 25
September - only 20,000 tonnes have been
supplied
and 15,000 distributed. The concern is
that the
coming winter will make relief efforts
more difficult.
The first snows have already fallen on
the Hindu Kush
mountains and the isolated highlands of
Hazarajat.
But though the WFP is accelerating the
supply of food,
it says it is unlikely to be able to
bring in more than
two-thirds of what is required. And it
is clear that little
aid is reaching the most remote areas
where the need
is greatest.
A new assessment by aid workers on the
ground in
Afghanistan will be presented to UN
co-ordinators in
Islamabad this week. It shows that the
effects of the
three-year drought that has hit
Afghanistan are far
worse than previously thought. Areas in
the north-east
are of particular concern.
In the western city of Herat food
deliveries are barely
keeping up with demand from the 1,000
people a day
who are arriving at refugee camps.
'We are getting a significant amount of
food into the
country and we are desperately trying to
get it to more
remote areas. The usual distribution
networks are
hugely disrupted. At the moment a
trickle is getting
through,' said Michael Huggins, a
spokesman for the
WFP.
He said the WFP operation was hampered
by a lack
of truck drivers willing to carry food
through
Afghanistan because of the bombing
raids, high fuel
prices and communication difficulties.
The Taliban have also caused problems
for aid
agencies. A series of offices have been
looted in
major cities, prompting French agency
Médecins
Sans Frontières to shut down its entire
Afghan
operation. There have been a number of
attempts to
steal vehicles from aid agencies. The
Taliban have
also delayed relief convoys by demanding
high taxes
on their passage.
Although the expected influx of refugees
to Pakistan
has yet to occur, there are signs of
larger shifts of
population than before. The last three
days have seen
more than 10,000 people cross the border
from
Afghanistan around the Taliban stronghold of
Kandahar.
Refugees report a breakdown in law and
order in
Kandahar. 'It is impossible to live
there now,' one said.
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