100 Afghan refugees freeze or starve every day in one camp

[Mark Pavlick]

>
>  > http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4328292,00.html
>>
>>  Refugees left in the cold at 'slaughterhouse' camp
>>
>>  100 Afghans perish daily as strained aid network collapses under flood
>>  of new arrivals
>>
>>  Doug McKinlay in Herat
>>  Thursday January 3, 2002
>>  The Guardian (London)
>>
>>  Maslakh camp, translated as Slaughterhouse in English, is on the brink
>>  of  an Ethiopian-style humanitarian disaster, aid workers have warned.
>>  Situated  30  miles  west of Herat city, the camp is home to more than
>>  350,000  displaced  Afghans,  of whom 100 die each day of exposure and
>>  starvation.
>>
>>  With  more  than  15  years  working  in  humanitarian  disasters, Ian
>>  Lethbridge, executive director of the Berkshire-based charity Feed the
>>  Children, says Maslakh is among the worst he has experienced.
>>
>>  "I  always  judge  everything by what I have seen in Africa," he said.
>>  "And  this  is  on  the  scale  of Africa. I was shocked at the living
>>  conditions of the new arrivals."
>>
>>  Izzah  Burza, 38, and her family have been at the camp, on the site of
>>  a  former  abattoir,  for  a month. Escaping the war and drought, they
>>  were drawn by the rumour of food. But to date they have received none.
>>
>>  "We  travelled  more  than  125  miles to this camp," she said. When I
>>  arrived  I had four children, now I have two. We've had nothing to eat
>>  for a week."
>>
>>  Her  story  is  common.  Although Maslakh was set up four years ago to
>>  deal with the drought, the recent conflict has swollen the camp.
>>
>>  Fresh  arrivals  find  themselves in a catch-22 situation. They cannot
>>  get help until they are registered as refugees by World Food Programme
>>  staff.  But  they cannot register without help. At the moment, the WFP
>>  has  only  a skeleton staff at Maslakh, not nearly enough to deal with
>>  the thousands already there, let alone those who show up daily.
>>
>>  Forced  to  make  do  outside  the  camp  itself,  the newcomers pitch
>>  whatever shelter they can muster on a barren plain littered with human
>>  waste.  Families without any shelter are forced to dig foxholes in the
>>  frozen  earth  to  escape  the  biting wind. The lucky ones have a few
>>  tattered blankets or torn plastic sheets as cover.
>>
>>  A stone's throw from the foxholes is one of the many graveyards on the
>>  camp's edges. The small size of the graves is clear evidence that most
>>  of  the  buried  are children. With the coming of the winter snow, the
>>  number of graves will grow.
>>
>>  As  I  walked  among  the throng I was continually mistaken for an aid
>>  worker.  Men  thrust papers in my face, asking me to register them for
>>  aid,  while  women  pointed  to  their  mouths,  miming  their hunger.
>>  Children,  too malnourished to move, sat shivering and listless, their
>>  eyes  black  holes.  Many  wore only rags for clothes, some wrapped in
>>  plastic in a vain attempt to generate heat. Most were barefoot.
>>
>>  Although  next  to  no  aid is getting to the camp, last week Feed the
>>  Children  managed  to  fly  40 tonnes of food and shelter into Herat's
>>  airport on a 30-year-old Ilyushin cargo plane.
>>
>>  "There  are  only  four  bakeries  attempting  to  feed  up to 100,000
>>  people,"  Mr  Lethbridge  said.  "The  most bread they can turn out is
>>  8,000  loaves  a day. We plan to get 60 bakeries going in the next few
>>  weeks, helping people to feed themselves."
>>
>>  While  the  west  was  striking at the Taliban, many in Maslakh kept a
>>  keen  ear to the radio, listening for updates. With little fighting in
>>  Herat   province,   they   expected  a  quick  response  from  western
>>  governments.  Aid  was  thought  to  be  on  its way. But with next to
>>  nothing showing up, they feel bitter and let down.
>>
>>  "You are just taking pictures," one woman at the camp said to me. "You
>>  are  not  here  to  help. We can't eat pictures. We are dying. We need
>  > food and medicine."
>>
>  >

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