The ACT members in Afghanistan, Christian Aid (CA), Church World
Service (CWS) and Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) express strong concerns
about the deteriorating situation in the country. The current drought
is the worst since 1971/72. Almost half the country is affected, but
the north and nort-west is worst hit.
Crops wither away in the fields and wells dry out, hundreds of thousands
of people are leaving their villages and walking towards camps around
bigger cities or in Pakistan. Only a huge relief effort now, before
the winter sets in in November, can help mitigate a potential crisis.
The UN describes the situation as the worst humanitarian disaster
in the world.
About half of Afghanistan's provinces are directly affected by the
drought. The UN's World Food Program (WFP) estimate that 4 to 5 million
of the countries 21 million people need food assistance at present
and up to 8 million will need assistance this winter. Among the most
needy are the 800,000 drought and war displaced. However those in
villages need urgent assistance so that they can stay in their homes
over the winter rather than being forced to squalid displaced camps
around the cities. In a recent report UN agencies warned that the
situation is getting rapidly worse and that famine now is real threat
to significant portions of the population.
Afghans already make up one of the largest refugee population in
the world (2 million in Pakistan, 1.5 million in Iran) but in the
last year, a further 1 million people have been displaced as a result
of the drought and on-going conflict in Afghanistan. 700,000 of those
remain within Afghanistan, in IDP camps such as those outside Herat.
The legacy of 20 years of conflict and ongoing fighting in the north-east
of the country has led to the destruction and dilapidation of rural
infrastructure and has increased vulnerability levels particularly
of rural livelihoods. 85% of Afghans are directly dependent on agriculture
to survive, and the failure of rains for the past three years has
led to very poor or no harvest on rain-fed and reduced harvests on
irrigated crops. Most rain-fed crops, accounting for over 70% of all
cultivated land in western and north-western provinces, have failed
altogether in 2001.
The situation will deteriorate over the coming months: no significant
harvest is expected until August 2002, increased displacement, starvation
and health crises will make the situation worse.
Urgent needs are food, water and seed. Many parts of Afghanistan
are inaccessible from late November: adequalte food stocks need to
be built up before then to allow the population to survive over winter
and prevent further displacement.
