CARE Helps Afghans Survive the Crisis
By Lindsay Alexander, Press Office,
CARE UK
Afghanistan, a country already ravaged by more than 20 years of war, is on the edge of a humanitarian catastrophe due to a drought. Below average rainfall has caused the majority of crops to fail and killed off most of the livestock. Safe drinking water is in extremely short supply and food shortages are becoming acute. Up to 1.2 million people -- more than half the country's population -- are affected by the crisis.
CARE is responding by expanding its programs to hard-hit areas of the country. CARE has been working to increase the water supply in the capital, Kabul, and the provinces of Ghazni and Wardak, two of the poorest and most severely affected parts of Afghanistan. Most recently CARE has begun several projects in Nawor District in the center of the country.
Nawor District is remote and roads are bad or non-existent. Springs and wells there are drying up. Wheat, barley and clover crops are withering away and more than 70 percent of the livestock has died off. For example, wheat production in the district has fallen 93 percent from 1998 levels, making it necessary for the district -- formerly a food exporter -- to import food. Over the past two years, 25 percent of Nawor's population has left the district, migrating primarily to Pakistan and Iran, or traveling to the cities. A CARE survey of 18,500 people in three Nawor communities (Bori Bahram in Dang-I-Allaudini area; Quarnala in Dang-I-Kwawat area; and Borjigay in Dang-I-Jerghair Borjigay) found that almost all households had been affected by the drought, which is making an already poor health situation, worse. Diarrhea and respiratory diseases - longtime child killers - are becoming worse.
"We do not have clean water," says Ghulam Haidar, father of 11 children in Bandi Abdara. "The spring where we fetch water is two hours away. My daughter has an abdominal ulcer, her stomach aches and the polluted water makes her vomit," he adds.
The nearest hospital for Haidar's family is in Ghazni -- a day's ride by bus or truck, if they are lucky enough to find one along the road.
Dwindling food supplies mean malnutrition is on the rise as well as disease.
"Malnutrition is widely visible in the skinny features of the adults and in the thin and pale faces of the children who have dry spots on their faces and swollen cheeks," says a CARE staff member in Afghanistan.
Sema Gul, a 35-year-old mother in Bani Abdara village, has been managing alone since her husband was kidnapped, leaving her with three small sons. Gul's family survives on food from her neighbors and by boiling wild vegetables and grass they collect from the hillsides. Gul herself has tuberculosis. Her small son, Ali has rickets, bone problems and diarrhea.
Noor Bibi, a widow who lives in the Sang-I-Chapchi village echoes Sema Gul's desperation: "In the past, we were able to eat wheat bread but now even barley flour is scarce. We search the mountains for wild vegetables and mix them with barley flour to make them go further. We can't cultivate our land because of the drought. My two daughters can embroider, but there is no market here so we collect and sell firewood -- all just to earn one loaf of bread a day," she adds.
CARE's project will provide emergency food supplies to 4,300 of Nawor District's most vulnerable families, including households headed by widows like Noor Bibi and Sema Gul. By December 2000, CARE hopes to have distributed more than 800 pounds of wheat -- the staple food -- via food-for work programs. The goal of these food-for-work projects is to improve the infrastructure in the district -- and thus improve Nawor's development prospects in the long run.
Small-scale projects will target three key areas. First, a six-mile stretch of road across mountain passes will be repaired, making it possible to transport goods to and from markets. The improved road also will give villagers' better access to basic services. Second, water supplies will be increased by deepening more than 250 wells and cleaning and improving 26 water-drawing points. New water channels will stretch across nearly 5,000 miles. Third, irrigation systems will be repaired and enhanced to increase food production. This involves building several water reservoirs. Combined, these reservoirs will hold more than 2,000 gallons of water. The project also will build irrigation structures than can deliver 1,000 gallons of water. The program covers more than 100 villages. Its aim is to work with more than 40 percent of the local population.
About CARE in Afghanistan
CARE began working in Afghanistan since 1961. It withdrew in 1980 and returned in 1989. CARE has five offices in Afghanistan with a regional office in Kabul, the capital. The program is supervised and supported through an office in Peshawar, in Pakistan. CARE is one of only two international aid organizations working in Nawor District.