Relief Agencies Report Getting Aid Into Afghanistan

Say Time Running Out to Get in Enough Before Winter

By Kathryn McConnell
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- International relief agencies are working around various obstacles to get food,
shelter and sanitation assistance to people in Afghanistan and in refugee camps in northwest
Pakistan, some non-governmental organization officials say.

Up to 7.5 million Afghans will need food and shelter assistance this winter, Mark Bartolini, an
International Rescue Committee (IRC) vice president, said at an October 25 Migration Policy
Institute forum on the situation in Afghanistan.

He said that nongovernmental organizations are bringing in food and materials by land from
Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan but that "time is running out" to get
enough assistance to the people who need it before winter sets in, particularly in the colder
highland areas.

Bartolini said that the amount needed to stave off famine in the short term is 52,000 metric tons
of food but that food is now arriving only at the rate of 1,000 tons a month.

Urs Boegli, head of the North American delegation of the International Committee of the Red
Cross (ICRC), said at the forum that although all ICRC expatriate staff were withdrawn from
Afghanistan September 16 after two decades of working in the country, they and staff in other
neighboring countries are in contact with 1,000 Afghan employees distributing assistance to
families of persons with disabilities.

Boegli said, however, that because Afghan ICRC employees' phone calls are "supervised" and
because of logistics problems "our relief operation is not yet what we want. It is patchy." He said
that as security in Afghanistan continues to degrade, his colleagues find it difficult to tell how
much control local staff have over ICRC's remaining stock in country. He added that until more
assistance gets into Afghanistan, the ICRC is keeping what it does have for the most vulnerable
groups such as women, children, the elderly, sick people and people with disabilities, and not
for massive distributions.

Boegli said relief groups are using commercial trucks and even donkeys to transport materials.
He added that "as the situation evolves" and more is known about the condition of airstrips in
Afghanistan, aid agencies may conduct airlifts of materials and "low-level" food drops. He
cautioned that one danger of high-altitude drops in largely rural areas is recipients' exposure to
a multitude of landmines.

Bartolini reported that 500 to 1,000 refugees a day are crossing into northwest Pakistan, with
spikes immediately after heavy bombing. He said problems with refugee camps include very
low water tables in the region requiring drilling as deep as 1,000 feet to locate well water. Some
local tribal leaders want to limit the size of camps, he said, and require that all aid coming into
the camps go through them.

People coming into "established" refugee camps to join their families are putting pressure on
education and health services, added Sippi Azberbaijani-Moghaddam, technical adviser for the
Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children based in Peshawar, Pakistan. She
noted that child labor is a "big problem" in the camps.

Afghan women refugees and those who are internally displaced face particular difficulties
accessing assistance services, said Azberbaijani-Moghaddam. According to the World Bank, 88
percent of Afghan women are illiterate and thus cannot read the forms required to receive aid,
Azberbaijani-Moghaddam said. They then must depend on others for help completing forms,
others who then may expect payment in food rations or sexual favors, she said. Many northern
women who speak Uzbek also have problems communicating with the mostly Dari- or
Pashtu-speaking aid workers, she said.

Azberbaijani-Moghaddam added that women in refugee camps also face domestic violence
from both men and women, asserting that widows are sometimes considered financial burdens
by other members of the family.

Women-led organizations in Afghanistan and Pakistan are providing services to Afghan women
sometimes more effectively than organizations led by men, she said. She added that the
Women's Commission is developing a list of women's organizations and individuals who can be
contacted when other agencies begin to plan strategy for the next stage of the humanitarian
assistance process and for cooperation with a new Afghan government.

The IRC's Bartolini said that while agencies are already thinking about post-conflict forms of
assistance, such as seeds for farmers and food for work programs, the focus now is on
"immediate needs."

"There is a strong case to be made for renewing a strong international [humanitarian
assistance] effort," the ICRC's Boegli added.