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that the country would be pushed into catastrophe unless the US threat of retaliation for last week's terror attacks is withdrawn.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.