Afghan Minister for Martyrs and Disabled
Affairs Abdullah Vardak heading a delegation met Dr. Ahmad-Ali Noorbala,
President of the Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) in Tehran on 1 January
2003 to review ways of cooperation in humanitarian affairs.
Mr. Vardak appreciating the humanitarian
aids of the IRCS in helping the people of Afghanistan during the years
of hardships, called for expansion of IRCS-Afghanistan cooperation in area
of humanitarian efforts.
Dr. Noorbala also voiced the IRCS readiness for establishing a comprehensive rehabilitation centre to make artificial limbs for the Afghan disabled in Kabul and holding short-term courses to train Afghan trainees in area of technical orthopaedics. This centre will provide medical assistance and rehabilitation services for the disabled and wounded, including mine victims of civil war in Afghanistan.
Mr. Vardak also said that the people of Afghanistan have remarkably benefited from humanitarian services and facilities through the management of the IRCS in the course of the civil war in Afghanistan. He declared several years of war and internal strife in Afghanistan had left up to 800,000 widowed and helpless, five million migrants, 1.5 million martyrs, two million disabled and one million orphans.
The IRCS reopened a diagnostic and treatment centre in Zaranj, capital of Nimrooz province, in Afghanistan in October. This centre provides services including internal medicine, obstetrics and gynaecology, healthcare and family planning, dentistry, medical laboratory, and pharmacy to the patients.