integer on Mon, 24 Sep 2001 12:23:14 +0200 (CEST) |
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At the UN conference a request was made to call Israel a racist state. > > Those who think they can wipe out terrorism by means of war are as >ridiculous > > as those who think they can bring poverty to an end in this world by >handing > > out food to the poor. >Afghanistan facing humanitarian disaster Famine Hunger and disease could >kill millions, aid agencies warn >Steven Morris and Felicity Lawrence >Wednesday September 19, 2001 - The Guardian >http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,554306,00.html > >Aid workers forced to flee Afghanistan warned yesterday that the country >would be pushed into catastrophe unless the US threat of retaliation for >last week's terror attacks is withdrawn. >Even before the attacks, aid agencies issued dire warnings that Afghanistan >was heading for disaster. A three year drought on top of two decades of war >and Soviet occupation has left more than 5m people - a quarter of the >population - threatened by starvation. >Remote villages will soon be cut off by snow without the stockpiles of >supplies from international agencies that might have carried them through >the winter. In the cities there have been crippling increases in the price >of food, and epidemics are threatening to take hold in the packed and filthy >refugee camps. >Dominic Nutt, emergency officer for Christian Aid, said: "It's as if a mass >grave has been dug behind millions of people. We can drag them back from it >or push them in. We could be looking at millions of deaths." >Mr Nutt recently travelled from the city of Herat to a village in the hills >of the Ghor province called Barkhol, a 200 mile journey which took two days >on rutted tracks. He found a community in crisis. >"As we came over the mountain pass we looked down on a scene of >devastation," he said. "The area looked as if it had been scorched. What >should have been wheat fields was nothing more than stubble." >Villagers told Mr Nutt they had got through almost all their food supplies >and had even eaten seeds which should have been planted for next year's >crop. Large families were sharing one piece of bread a day. They could not >leave because there was no transport. Aid agencies had hoped to get supplies >to villages like Barkhol before they were cut off but the US threat means >that this will almost certainly be impossible. >Mr Nutt also visited the bleak Maslakh camp near Herat. There it is >estimated that up to 40 people are dying every day, many because they arrive >too weak to survive after trying to hold out in their villages. >They have food but conditions are harsh. Most have to dig a hole in the >sandy soil and try to suspend what ever cloth they have over it as a >makeshift shelter. Water is scarce and in some cases contaminated. >Sanitation is basic. >The picture is just as severe in other parts of the country. In the central >parts, the UN's world food program has heard reports of Afghans driven to >eat poisonous grass which causes paralysis, while those in the north have >been eating meals of locusts mixed with animal feed. >The world food program says that as many as 20% of children in some regions >are dying before the age of five and the average life expectancy is 40. But >it has been forced to suspend its $150m feeding program >The picture is further complicated by the mass movement of people within >Afghanistan and across its borders. More than 2m people have been driven >from their homes by the wars and drought. The UN High Commission for >Refugees said at least another million could flee if the US attacked. >Aid agencies point out that many of those who may be hurt are unlikely to >have any idea about what has been happening in America. _______________________________________________ Nettime-bold mailing list [email protected] http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold