by James Addis - World Vision Central Asia Communications
November 27 - A World Vision relief worker returning from Afghanistan today reported high levels of malnutrition among all sections of the community.
World Vision relief manager Doris Knoechel said starvation was not confined to the most vulnerable – children and mothers – but was evident in mature adults, indicating severe famine.
“People are starving, they think of nothing but food,” Dr Knoechel said.
Dr Knochel made her remarks on returning to Iran after a week-long visit to the western Afghan provinces of Herat and Gohwar.
She said conditions were worst in Gohwar, which was yet to receive any assistance from international aid agencies.
“It’s urgent we get aid in ... otherwise people will die. There is only limited time before the roads are filled with snow and we can’t get in,” Dr Knoechel said.
She said thousands were fleeing the area to mushrooming displaced camps in the principal western town of Herat. The largest camp, Maslakh, is conservatively estimated to be home to 200,000 people.
Dr Knoechel said although aid was reaching the camps, it was sporadic with deliveries of food interrupted by fighting and banditry.
She saw 65 severely malnourished children in an emergency feeding station in Maslakh camp. Two of them died of starvation during her visits there.
Despite the hardships Dr. Knoechel said people responded towards her with tremendous warmth.
“I met some of the nicest people you could hope to meet, even though everything is filthy, cold and negative. You have to be a special person to survive there,” Dr. Knoechel said.
Dr. Knoechel said it was important to distribute aid and conduct emergency feeding programmes in outlying areas and try to head-off further migrations to camps. She said camps tended to become permanent, with inhabitants becoming isolated from their land and dependent on food handouts. Dr. Knoechel said World Vision hoped to establish food-for-work projects, which would keep the able-bodied populace productively employed.
World Vision Central Asia operations director Keith Buck said the aid and development agency had agreements with Unicef and the World Food Program for the distribution of food and the establishment of therapeutic feeding programs in western Afghanistan, but the agency was hampered by continuing insecurity and lack of access. Currently aircraft are unable to fly into Herat, since the runway is yet to be declared safe following fighting between Taliban and Northern Alliance forces.
“Dr. Knoechel’s findings make it urgent for us to find creative ways of overcoming the obstacles we face in bringing assistance to Afghanistan,” Buck said. |