Afghanistan Neighbors Helpful With Relief, USAID Official Says

(Meets in Pakistan with relief agency representatives) (620)

By Kathryn McConnell

Washington File Staff Writer



Washington -- The countries bordering Afghanistan are being "very
helpful" to efforts to get humanitarian assistance to that country,
says a senior U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
official just back from the region.


Bernd McConnell, director of USAID's Central Asian Task Force, said
one purpose of his 40-hour visit to Pakistan earlier in the week was
to deliver via military and commercial transport 35,000 blankets --
the number requested by the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR).


In an October 26 briefing at the State Department's Foreign Press
Center, McConnell said another purpose was to talk with
representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and U.N.
agencies about specific needs of people in Afghanistan.


In Pakistan McConnell also announced the delivery of five medical kits
that can serve up to 50,000 people for three months. He said
cooperation between USAID and the Defense Department in getting
assistance to points where it can be turned over to relief agencies
for distribution "underscores to me the fact that this is a
government-wide effort."


He added that the military had used USAID's suggestions on where to
drop emergency meal packages.


McConnell said the United States appreciates Pakistanis for "their
generosity and willingness to support" a fluctuating Afghan refugee
population of approximately three million for several years.


He said Uzbekistan's recently announced willingness to open its border
with northern Afghanistan to allow the transfer of assistance "can
address 40 percent of the food needs in Afghanistan" because the most
vulnerable groups of Afghans are in the north. He added that USAID is
also working with Turkmenistan and Tajikistan so that food aid can
flow through those countries. He added, however, that Afghanistan's
neighbors "are reluctant to throw open their borders" to refugees
because they also have been affected by several years of drought.


The official added that there has been "excellent cooperation" between
the World Food Program (WFP) -- the United States' major food relief
partner -- and Iran on getting food to Afghanistan's western border.


Afghan employees of the United Nations and NGOs are doing "excellent
work" getting relief food and materials to the most vulnerable people
in Afghanistan. He said Afghan staffers are working under "very
difficult conditions" including harassment by the Taliban. He added
there have been no reports of Taliban placing people "inside the aid
network."


McConnell reiterated a point made by some NGO officials in Washington
the previous day that there is communication between Afghan staff and
expatriate staff of their parent organizations in neighbor countries.


The number of Afghans leaving their homes is fewer than earlier
predicted, McConnell said. He said there have been reports that people
in Afghanistan "have started to realize the [military] targeting is
fairly precise and that they are able to live and operate sort of
around it because they know that they're not the targets." He added
that people are better off "staying where they are" because movement
by already undernourished people can be "debilitating."


With impending winter that could lay 20 to 30 feet of snow in northern
Afghanistan making many roads impassable, the need to get more food
into the country is "urgent," McConnell said. He added that USAID and
WFP are considering developing their own air-and-land and air-drop
systems of getting food and supplies into the country.


McConnell concluded by saying that more USAID staffers are being
dispatched to Uzbekistan to help coordinate humanitarian assistance
efforts for Afghanistan.


(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International
Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Website:
http://usinfo.state.gov)