September 18, 2001
The UN's humanitarian agencies are gearing for a full-scale emergency, fearing a catastrophe in Afghanistan as residents join aid organisations in fleeing a pending counter-strike by a wounded United States, officials said Tuesday. The measures come as the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) warned that some 3.8 million Afghans, who are totally dependent on outside aid, have only enough food stocks for two to three weeks.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the WFP and UNICEF said they are all reinforcing their humanitarian operations in countries adjoining Afghanistan -- notably Pakistan, Iran and the three former Soviet republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
In Geneva, a special inter-agency unit has been set up to reinforce the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which is already active in Islamabad.
Officials said the agencies are preparing to be able to offer immediate assistance should the United States launch its expected strikes on bases in Afghanistan of Saudi dissident Usamah Bin-Ladin, the believed mastermind behind last week's terrorist blitz in the US which killed more than 5,000 people.
"We are refining our emergency plans around a variety of scenarios, without falling into science fiction," said WFP spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume. Planning was also taking into account that Afghanistan is moving into winter, which is particularly severe in the mountainous regions. Berthiaume said food deliveries inside Afghanistan had virtually ground to a halt with the declining security situation. "We have enough food stocks inside Afghanistan to last normal operations for two to three weeks. We have stopped food shipments into the country due to the lack of commercial trucks in various parts of the country to move food," Berthiaume said. She also cited fuel shortages and a lack of truck drivers willing to take the risk of driving around Afghanistan.
International aid workers were evacuated from the country last week because of security fears in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the United States.
US President George W. Bush has said he wants Bin-Ladin taken "dead or alive", sparking fresh fears of an all-out attack on Afghanistan by the United States and its allies and a panicked exodus of residents from Afghan cities. About 370 Afghans working for WFP were trying to ensure food distribution among 200,000 displaced people, mainly near the city of Herat, according to Berthiaume. "We, together with other agencies, believe that millions of people will suffer serious food shortages if we cannot deliver relief assistance for security reasons," Berthiaume added.
Only days before the terrorist attacks in the US, WFP appealed to international donors for 150 million dollars (163 million euros) and raised its estimate of the number of people facing hunger in the war- and drought-ravaged country to 5.5 million. Berthiaume estimated that out of a population close to 20 million, about 12 million were affected by drought. WFP is also preparing contingency plans to help about 1.5 million people on the borders of Afghanistan, shipping in 65,000 tonnes of food supplies, such as cereal, salt, oil and other essentials. Until now, WFP was supplying some 25,000 tonnes a month to feed 3.8 million people inside the country, but many of these have now fled to the border. In a bid to halt the exodus, the ruling Taliban has set up road blocks and is turning back those without passports, according to UNHCR spokesman in Geneva, Kris Janowski.
Attempting to give assistance to the human tide, the UNHCR is hoping the Taleban will allow it to make daily trips to replenish supplies inside the country. It is also hoping neighbouring states such as Iran will open its borders to allow assistance to reach those fleeing the country. The UNHCR has, however, ruled out parachuting in supplies, as it has done in other humanitarian crises, such as in Somalia, Kurdistan and Rwanda.
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