National Emergency in Afghanistan
August 6, 2008
More than a million people are at risk
of starvation in northern Afghanistan
due to severe drought conditions and
the global food crisis. Although some
international organizations and
donors have responded, the threat
facing Afghan children, who suffer
from one of the world’s highest
mortality rates, remains huge.
Worst Drought in a Decade
After one of the coldest winters in
history, Central Asia is now suffering
the effects of the worst drought since
2000. Afghanistan has been hit
particularly hard. Without spring rain
this year, much of the country is experiencing severe drought conditions and almost two million people in 19 Afghan provinces have been affected, according to international press reports. The situation is critical in the north, particularly in the Jowzjan and Faryab provinces. In an interview with the United Nations news agency IRIN, Afghan Rural Rehabilitation and Development Minister Ehsan Zia stated the drought has destroyed the livelihoods of 1.5 million people.
Abnormally high temperatures have exacerbated this situation. According to the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), temperatures surpassing 40 degrees Celsius have dried up water sources and made life unbearable. Afghan citizens’ already precarious access to safe drinking water has worsened ten-fold. More than 1.15 million people in 22 Afghan provinces are facing serious drinking-water shortages, according to a July 9th UN appeal for aid. This number is expected to rise as the summer progresses and more water sources are destroyed.
Record-breaking Food Prices
In addition to drought, Afghanistan is also facing an acute food crisis. As a result of the drought, poor harvest, and worldwide jump in food prices, Afghanistan is in desperate need of assistance. Many people are selling valuable livestock just to buy bread, according to international press reports. Harvests of non-irrigated wheat – the country’s dietary staple food – dropped by 80 percent this year while wheat prices have rose from 50-100 percent, the Associated Press reported. Relief workers on the ground in Afghanistan, however, say prices for the most important staples (bread, wheat, rice) have gone up by 300 percent, the international relief and development agency Catholic Relief Services (CRS) reported.
In April, the London-based newspaper The Economist reported that the situation is so dire that it threatens to “undo all the gains in poverty reduction…made during the last decade of growth.” According to the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, the country has gone form producing 90% of its own food in 2007 to a projected amount less than two-thirds of their previous harvest. As two million tons of grains are badly needed in severely affected areas, the United Nations made an emergency appeal to international donors and UN members states in July. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) also allocated US$11 million from its emergency relief funds to provide food for 1.7 million people in 13 of the worst affected provinces.
However, the UN maintains much more needs to be done. “We are concerned that the drought appeal for Afghanistan may not attract sufficient attention from the international aid community and secure its much needed support in time,” UNICEF’s Humanitarian Coordinator and Representative Bernt Aasen stated in a press release. The emergency relief funds are “just a beginning and we count on the international for their voluntary assistance,” he continued. But with fewer donors interested in funding projects in Afghanistan and increased violence against aid workers, relief organizations are struggling to keep their promises and most are unable to provide more help.
Children in Crisis
Sadly, this is not enough to help the children in crisis in drought-affected areas. So many children are dying of dehydration, starvation, and disease that even deeply traditional families no longer mark this occasion, IWPR reported. With a meager diet that almost exclusively consists of tea, bread, and rice, one in five Afghans and 40 percent of Afghan children are severely malnourished, the Edmonton Journal reported. This crisis poses grave threats to the health and well-being of Afghan children. If food assistance does not reach children in time, their condition may result in anemia, decreased cognitive development, disability, and all too often, death.
To avoid this scenario, many Afghan parents are fleeing the worst-affected areas and migrating to camps or cities. Hundreds have sought help at Herat City’s Pediatric Hospital in western Afghanistan. Many of them are parents from rural villages and have arrived in Herat after traveling hundreds of miles by donkey and then bus, CRS reported. But once they arrive, the help available to them is limited. With city food supplies decreasing quickly, the newcomers receive little food assistance from municipal authorities and are often required to buy medical supplies for their children. The Afghan government in Kabul has directed most of the UN aid to reach children suffering the effects of drought and prevent famine in these areas, but without additional international support, it is not clear if they will be successful in this endeavor.