Humanitarian assistance faces new challenges in Afghanistan

"We were here when the Russians were finally thrown out, and there was an immense hope that things were going to get better, that peace was coming soon, that we could finally get on with development. Yet then within a very few short days it all fell apart and the country was plunged into civil war," said Kjell Godtfredsen, director of the emergency program here for Norwegian Church Aid (NCA), a member of Action by Churches Together (ACT), an international network of church disaster agencies. "It's starting to feel like that period of history all over again."

One of the most ominous signs that the situation is deteriorating inside Afghanistan is a declaration from the Northern Alliance warlords controlling Kabul that all international agencies and non-governmental organizations must cease their humanitarian efforts for the next week.

"It seems they want to make sure they have complete control, without competition from anyone," said Godtfredsen.

In what appears to be a related move, the Northern Alliance commanders controlling the capital have also urged Great Britain to remove most of its special operations troops guarding the Bagram airbase north of Kabul. Several Northern Alliance leaders, including those aligned with former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, an ethnic Tajik, have carved up Kabul neighborhoods in a pattern reminiscent of the last time they ran the show in Kabul, a period that led to far more suffering and destruction in the capital than during the Soviet occupation.

Shiite Muslims, a minority in Afghanistan, are particularly worried about Rabbani. Karim Khalili, the leader of the Shiite faction in the Northern Alliance, marched his 3,000 troops to the edge of the capital to bring pressure on Rabbani to share power. Khalili called on the UN to send peacekeeping troops, something Rabbani opposes.

Many aid workers here believe the country's best hope lies in the return of King Zahir Shah from exile. The king has promised to convene a council of tribal elders that would design Afghanistan's new government.

In another sign of deteriorating conditions inside the country, four international journalists were reportedly killed on the road from here to Kabul. Details are sketchy, but the attack took place near Jalalabad, where no clear victor had yet emerged in the wake of the apparent Taliban withdrawal.

Security conditions around Jalalabad had caused trouble for aid agencies trying to get materials to where they are needed. Two trucks carrying 400 tents provided by NCA have been stopped at the border crossing just west of here for over a week. The drivers refused to go, citing the likelihood that they will lose their cargo to looters. Yet Godtfredsen reported that the drivers are now scheduled to leave on November 20, even though the security situation remains unsettled.

"There's a risk we'll lose the shipment, but it's a risk we're going to take," said Godtfredsen. "If we store the tents too long in one place, it also costs us, so we get to the point where we're better off risking losing them. It's a risky business, but the important thing is getting the food and supplies to those who need help right away."

Godtfredsen said that if the tents get through to Kabul, where Christian Aid, a British organization, will transport them to the western city of Herat, then NCA will send more shipments by road from here. Several other parts of the country are considered more secure, and six trucks carrying food provided by NCA left Kabul today for Bamyan and Ghazni.

NCA staff said they talked today with their local staff in Kabul, who managed to call out by using a satellite phone. "They are ok but they're laying low," said Godtfredsen.

The border between Afghanistan and Pakistan has been militarized in the last week. With UN officials reporting an influx of some 3,000 Afghan refugees into Pakistan every day in just this section of the border, and with defeated Taliban fighters sneaking out of Afghanistan, President Pervez Musharraf ordered more troops to the border zone.

Despite the show of force, refugees continued to slip into Pakistan through smugglers' paths in the mountains. Many of the refugees are difficult to detect, and move in with relatives in the sprawling refugee camps around this town. UN refugee officials have taken to calling them "the invisible refugees" because they do not register with either the UN or the Pakistani government.

The government has begun to entice Afghans out of the crowded refugee neighborhoods and into 11 camps it constructed closer to the border. NCA has helped provide water and sanitation for four of the new camps. Each of the camps was designed to hold 10,000 people. Whether the camps end up housing new refugees fleeing the violence at home, or serving as a way station for refugees already in Pakistan who have decided to return to their native land, only time will tell. Aid workers say most refugees here want to go home, but first want reassurance that the fighting and drought have come to an end.

The first group of 386 people from the unofficial Jallozai refugee camp near Peshawar were taken today to the Kotkai camp near the Afghan border. By registering with the UN and accepting the move, the families will receive food, shelter, water, and medical care-all things they lacked in the unofficial camp. The government had forbidden non-governmental organizations from providing human services in the Jallozai camp.

"It's a completely voluntary decision on the part of the refugees whether they want to accept the move," said Godtfredsen. "Yet is it really voluntary if the people are starving?"

The government and the UN hope 500 families a day will accept the offer and move to the new sites. Yet since the new sites are extremely remote, with no opportunities for employment, many observers here doubt the UN and the government will get that many takers for what is essentially a one-way ticket.

Although the route from Peshawar remains conflictive, the World Food Program claimed it succeeded in getting 52,000 metric tons of food moved into Afghanistan, what it needs to feed the hungry in Afghanistan for one month. The problem is getting that food to the people who need it, with widespread looting still a problem in many areas, and people living at high elevations in the north about to find themselves incommunicado after the first heavy snows of the winter.

"The problem right now isn't a lack of food, but rather a lack of good logistics for delivering the food to where it's needed," said Thomas Thomsen, director here of the Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugees, which is supported by ACT-Netherlands.