> From: "Kirsten Neilsen" <kirsten at Infothecary.ORG>
> Organization: Infothecary, Berkeley CA
> Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 21:05:31 -0800
> To: "'Lbo-Talk'" <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
> Subject: Crying wolf, or doing their job?
>
> An article in Salon claims:
>
>>>> Humanitarian aid groups warned that the bombing would create an aid
> catastrophe -- but
>>>> they've brought in far more relief since the war than before it
> began
>
> Does anyone have more information or perspective? (I don't subscribe to
> Salon so don't have access to the whole article)
I have been trying to find out more about this for a few days, in response to a Financial Times article making a similar claim. So I wrote to the World Food Programme (that's the UN food relief operation)'s Islamabad spokesperson. I asked him if the US bombing was in fact making the situation a lot worse, or if, as the FT reported, they were actually getting food in. Here's what he said (this was a couple days ago):
Dear Liza,
I have indeed read the FT article.
the situation is still in flux. Before the NA advance over the north and into Kabul, WFP was able to bring in up to 30,000 tons of food supplies into Afghanistan from four neighboring countries (Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan).
In the last 72 hours Afghanistan has witnessed a dramatic shift in the situation on the ground. Predictions on how the situation will evolve can only be speculative at this stage, however WFP hopes to see a gradual stabilization in Afghanistan, especially in the north over the coming days.
While the new situation could offer new opportunities for the supply of food assistance to more areas in the north and a more secure working environment for WFP's NGO partners who have seen distributions disrupted in the past weeks, there are likely be some temporary negative effects on humanitarian operations in certain parts of the country.
As was the case yesterday, no trucks left Peshawar or Quetta today because the truck drivers WFP uses did not want to drive into the country because of fear and insecurity.
However, WFP operations elsewhere continued as normal.
The first barge load of desperately needed humanitarian aid into Northern Afghanistan from Uzbekistan left the port of Termez this afternoon. The river crossing will become a major humanitarian corridor into northern Afghanistan where there are an estimated 3 million hungry people.
The cargo includes 50 MT of wheat flour from WFP, in addition to other humanitarian supplies from other aid agencies .
>From Turkmenistan, a convoy of trucks carrying about 1,200 tonnes of food
left Turkmenabad for north Afghanistan, This is enough for about 150,000
people for a month. We have more than 3 million Afghans in need of food aid
that depend on these convoys coming from Turkmenistan. Hopefully the new
Uzbek corridor and more stability in the region will help us step up our
efforts in the coming few days.
In line with WFP's strategy to boost its trucking capacity and push the required 52,000 tonnes of food per month into the country, 53 Volvo trucks are being airlifted to Ashkabad, in Turkmenistan. Of these, 32 have already arrived, half positioned in Turkmenabad. The remainder will arrive by the end of the week.
the situation Afghanistan is grim. We have six million Afghans who are dependent on international food aid to survive the coming harsh winter months. the harvest last year was only two million tons, half of the annual domestic needs. Before Sept 11 there were pre-famine conditions with one million people having left their homes and went to urban centers. Some people resorted to eating locusts and grass.
Even before 7 Oct, WFP was planning to provide food aid to 5.5 million people in Afghanistan. Now we are talking about 6 million.
As for the direct impact of the military hostilities, shrapnel from bombs so far has hit one casual laborer working in WFP Kabul warehouse and he had to be hospitalized for about two days. the walls of one warehouse in Herat were destroyed by bombing and a few trucks were hit by shrapnel from bombing in the central territories but no one was hurt.
hope all this helps
KM ps. I have always been a fan of your magazine!
====================== Khaled Mansour WFP Public Affairs Officer West & Central Asia and the Middle East