ROME - The United Nations World
Food Programme today launched an appeal for a $76-million emergency operation
to save millions of people in Afghanistan from starvation due to a long
and devastating cycle of drought and civil war.
WFP, the world's largest food aid agency,
said that it is seeking support from donors for the new emergency operation
in order to avert further deaths from hunger and stabilize the population
so as to reduce the mass movements of people to Afghanistan's cities and
into neighbouring countries. The new emergency will target 3.8 million
people for one year.
"We are going to step up our distributions in Afghanistan to prevent the crisis from getting worse than it is," said Girard Van Dijk, WFP Representative in Afghanistan. "We need to launch a new, and larger, emergency operation for Afghanistan in April because it is already evident that the upcoming wheat harvest, due in July, will not meet the food needs of the people."
"We believe there will be a severe crop shortfall because of the shortage of good-quality seed in the country," Van Dijk said. He added that thousands of farmers who have fled their home villages to large cities in Afghanistan or to Pakistan and Iran in search of food will be unlikely to return for the new planting season.
"There have been three consecutive years of severe drought in Afghanistan and we can see that millions of people are at a real risk of starving to death," warned Van Dijk.
Although there has been some snow this winter (the majority of Afghanistan's crops are rain fed) there are now fears that if rains fail again in 2001, "we could see a widespread famine," Van Dijk predicted.
About 85 percent of Afghanistan's estimated 21.9 million people are directly dependent on agriculture. With their crops ruined by the drought, millions of Afghans have lost their purchasing power because of mass unemployment, a moribund economy and a 21-year civil war.
In order to mobilize its resources most efficiently, WFP, the humanitarian organization with the largest programme in Afghanistan, is consolidating its current emergency and development operations into a single one in order to swiftly and effectively reach the huge and ever-growing number of hungry poor.
Van Dijk noted that the most vulnerable people among the Afghan population, which is heavily dependent on livestock as an economic resource, are expected to have liquidated totally its animal holdings before the next harvest.
"The disappearance of farm animals is yet another sign of just how serious the problem is here," said Van Dijk. "The international community cannot stand by while the Afghan people are slowly and silently wasting from the dearth of food and economic opportunities in their country."
WFP is the United Nation's front-line agency in the fight against global hunger. In 1999, WFP fed more than 89 million people in 82 countries including most of the world's refugees and internally displaced people.
For more information please contact:
Gerard Van Dijk
WFP Country Representative, Afghanistan
Tel: +9251-282-8934/Cell: +9251300548866
Email: gerard.vandijk@wfp.org
Heather Hill
WFP/Rome
Tel. +39-06-6513-2253
Email: heather.hill@wfp.org
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