Brussels, 19/10/2001 (Agence Europe) - The massive floods of refugees that have been forecast since the beginning of the US air strikes have not yet come to pass (see EUROPE of 19 October, p.11), so the driving priority for ECHO, the European Community Humanitarian Office (and for its humanitarian partners in the field), is to ensure that aid continues to get through to Afghanistan, as Hélène Quentrec, one of ECHO's two correspondents in Islamabad (Pakistan) explained to journalists on Friday in Brussels.
Describing the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan as "extremely serious", because the country is experiencing the worst drought in three years, aggravated by years of civil war and more recently by air strikes and the fact that it is difficult to get humanitarian aid into the country as a result of the general uncertainty, the ECHO correspondent signalled that the flood of refugees was "invisible" since Afghans were slipping across the border illegally to join their friends and families in neighbouring countries. The figures are weak and difficult to verify, she added. The estimated number of refugees to have reached Pakistan varies between 5,000 and 20,000, but no actual count has been made.
People have been displaced within the country, usually from urban areas to the countryside.
Quoting UN figures, the ECHO correspondent noted that 5 million people risk starvation, particularly in the north of the country where the harvest has been particularly bad this year. Based on information supplied by Afghan humanitarian workers (between 5,000 and 10,000 people), ECHO wants to ensure that displaced populations living outside camps be covered before the winter (with the supply of shelter, tents and blankets); that food security is increased, particularly in the north; and people be "fixed" in their village of origin in rural zones. Humanitarian programmes to achieve these three objectives are currently being prepared, with the EUR 23.5 million remaining from the budget allocated to ECHO until the end of the year.
Asked how the US food airdrops are collected in the field, she replied that it is always a complicated operation on the ground and requires accompaniment in the field so that the food reaches the people it is aimed at, but there is no way of carrying out this accompaniment so it is impossible to know where the food ends up. The spokesperson for the European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid, Poul Nielson, added in this connection that for the Commission, air drops of food are always a "last resort" and the provision of food aid by traditional means (convoys of lorries) were to be preferred. According to the ECHO representative, the safety of the convoys had not yet posed a problem since most of the aid going into the country is loaded on private lorries whose drivers know the terrain and agree to take the food to areas felt to be secure, thanks to the tacit agreement of the Afghan authorities (who allow them to travel). She explained that mines and un-exploded bombs had been a problem ever since the withdrawal of the Soviet troops, but the problem had increased since the bombing started because 30 to 40% of the bombs dropped do not explode when they hit the ground. She added that the areas in question will not be accessible, especially once there is snowfall, which will hide the bombs. The NGOs specialising in mine-clearance are on "emergency standby" and will intervene when un-exploded bombs are spotted. The emergency aid recently granted by ECHO for medical aid (EUR 1.5 million for the Red Cross's International Committee) is to provide aid to the future victims of exploding bombs and mines.
In terms of the looting of NGOs' supplies that has been reported in the media, the ECHO representatives said that there had been unconfirmed reports of such incidents in Kandahar and Mazar I Charif. The looting is reported to have been carried out by non-Afghan Taliban returning from the frontline.
The ECHO representatives in Islamabad (one specialising in humanitarian aid and the other in medical aid) are responsible for monitoring the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan and the surrounding countries, assessing needs, monitoring the funding provided by ECHO to NGOs and humanitarian agencies implementing projects on the ground, and sending information to the European Commission to help determine the best strategy to be followed to help deal with the Afghan people's suffering.