JANUARY 2004
IRAN: 1/1 Bam earthquake
An aid-needs assessment carried out by the UN has highlighted the shortage of food and water in the southeastern Iranian city of Bam - hit by a destructive earthquake six days ago - and surrounding villages. With the recent drop in temperature and the consequent risk of hypothermia, the aid-needs assessment is focusing on shelter. "What we've been looking at is the quality and quantity of the temporary accommodation," Ted Pearn, the manager of the UN On-Site Operations Coordination Centre (OSOC), part of the UN Disaster Assistance Coordination Team (UNDAC), told IRIN. Temporary accommodation consists of tents or tarpaulins. Many survivors are still without tents and rely on small fires to keep warm through the bitterly cold nights. Others only have one tent for up to two families, but the objective is to get up to 100,000 people some form of protection from the elements. Erection of three tent camps has started in the city. The camps are designed to accommodate up to 60,000 people each.
TAJIKISTAN: 1/1 Aid bridge project
The US is expected to provide US $30-40 million for the Tajik-Afghan border bridge project, which will help reopen historic trade routes between Afghanistan and Central Asia and increase economic integration in the region, according to a press release issued on Wednesday by the US Embassy in Dushanbe. United States Ambassador Richard Hoagland and the Minister of Transport of Tajikistan Abdujalil Salimov signed a bilateral agreement for the construction of the bridge over the Pyanj River. Construction could begin in early 2004, and, once begun, is expected to take 18 months. The 670-metre bridge would be built to international seismic standards, the press release said. Tajikistan provided support for the US-led military campaign that overthrew the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in late 2001 and has been a staging post for the delivery of international aid to its southern neighbour.
IRAN: 4/1 Bam families receive rations
The Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) has completed mapping the devastated city of Bam into 12 districts, and nearly all families have been registered and given monthly ration cards for relief distribution. "We have a new relief distribution system in place which is mid-term - this is more regular distribution given to families instead of individuals, based on statistics of the number of people who are in the city," Mustafa Mohaghegh, the IRCS international relations coordinator, told IRIN on Sunday. Each family will receive about 12 basic items a month and a further nine items, such as tents, blankets and cooking utensils, every six months. "Our plan is to include the coordination of the international organisations and NGOs and to try and bring back normal life to the people in the city," Mohaghegh said.
IRAN: 5/1 Bam flash appeal
The United Nations is preparing to launch a Flash Appeal for victims of the Bam earthquake that struck 10 days ago and killed about 32,000 people. The decision followed a request by the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Preparation for the Appeal is being conducted jointly with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC), and aims to address urgent and immediate needs in affected areas. This is to ensure smooth transition from the emergency phase to medium and long-term recovery.
AFGHANISTAN: 5/1 Pneumonia and flu kill 30 in Ghowr
The United Nations in Kabul said on Monday that severe influenza and pneumonia had killed 30 people due to extreme cold in the western provinces of Ghowr in late December. "This is not an outbreak of whooping cough, as has been reported, but a severe type of influenza and pneumonia," Manoel de Almieda e Silva, a spokesperson of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), said on Monday.
KAZAKHSTAN: 5/1 Flood warning
If the Chardara water reservoir in the extreme south of Kazakhstan were to overflow, up to 1 million people living downstream along the Syrdarya river, that the reservoir flows into, could be flooded out, government officials warned on Tuesday. The Syrdarya is one of two important rivers in Central Asia, along with the Amudarya. "The situation is dangerous, particularly as we have got a very big water inflow and we cannot make huge discharges because the river downstream can't handle more water," Amirkhan Kenchimov, the deputy head of the water resources agency at the Kazakh agriculture ministry, told IRIN from the capital, Astana, on Tuesday.
UZBEKISTAN: 6/1 Human rights
A senior rights activist in Uzbekistan charged Tuesday that torture by police and in prisons was increasing despite promises by the Uzbek president to look into such charges filed by the United Nations, AFP reported. "Torture was being conducted en masse and they are still using it today in criminal investigation units and prisons," Talib Yakubov, who heads the Uzbek Human Rights Society, told AFP. "Torture is a now a part of the nation's political policy," he said. "And it is the government's leaders who created this torture structure." He said his organisation has sent several appeals to Uzbek President Islam Karimov - a key ally of the US campaign in Afghanistan - but has received no answer from his administration.
IRAN: 7/1 Bam earthquake
The Iranian Ministry of Health and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) agreed on Wednesday that field hospitals established in Bam, following the massively destructive quake that hit the city on 26 December, by teams from the Ukraine, the USA and the IFRC, would be combined. The new facility will eventually serve as the main referral hospital for the 250,000 survivors in Bam and the surrounding region, and will cover the hospital needs of Bam for the next year. "It's an emergency response unit so it's a very self sufficient hospital. We brought 12 tonnes of medicine with us and all the equipment - X-rays, ICU, an operating theatre," Lasse Kylanpaa, an information delegate of the Finnish Red Cross, told IRIN. "At this stage, we're encouraging everyone to pool their resources," he added.
IRAN 9/1 Bam earthquake
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) launched a three-month emergency operation on Friday to feed survivors of the earthquake that razed the city of Bam. Following a WFP assessment, there are about 100,000 people in need of food aid in Bam and the surrounding area. WFP's emergency aid package, worth US $2.9 million, will ensure that each person receives a daily ration of bread, rice, pulses, vegetable oil, sugar, nutritional biscuits and salt. The operation is part of the UN Flash Appeal that was launched Thursday, jointly with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).
AFGHANISTAN: 14/1 UN office attacked
The Afghan NGOs Security Office (ANSO), an organisation providing security advice to national and international NGOs in the country, confirmed that a bomb exploded in front of the office of an international aid organisation in the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif on Sunday. According to the group, one person was injured as a result of the explosion, which occurred outside premises belonging to French aid group Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development (ACTED). "It is believed that an explosive device was either thrown or planted against the guard hut," Nick Downie, ANSO project coordinator, told IRIN on Tuesday in Kabul, adding that the injured person was a passer-by.
IRAN: 15/1 Bam emergency food distribution
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has launched a programme to provide food supplies to the people of Bam for an initial period of three months with the Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) as their implementing partner. The southeastern Iranian city, devastated by an earthquake on 26 December, has been divided into 12 zones. An IRCS official in the central zone told IRIN that they had no problems with food distribution and they were busy sending supplies into sub-zones to be further distributed by community leaders. They were said to be going tent-to-tent to provide people with needed food items and other assistance.
PAKISTAN: 15/1 UNHCR operations to continue despite lay-offs
Despite the forced lay-off of about 160 staff due to budget constraints, operations of the office for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Pakistan were likely to continue unimpeded, an aid official said on Thursday. "Our budget, which has been shrinking ever since the emergency in 2001-02, was reduced further last year by almost 25 percent. So this reduction in our staff was part of the reaction to that," Jack Redden, a UNHCR spokesman, told IRIN in the capital, Islamabad.
IRAN: 16/1 Bam earthquake
Large numbers of people disabled by the Bam disaster, mostly women and the elderly, have been seeking medical assistance from the government run Iranian Welfare Organisation (IWO) in Bam, three weeks after the devastating earthquake hit the city. The IWO has called for increased international assistance to deal with the huge new case load. Masouma Borji, 37, a resident of Bam injured in the disaster, had come to the IWO compound to ask to be referred to a rehabilitation camp in the provincial capital of Kerman, 175 km northwest of Bam. "My ears were badly injured in the earthquake, they were bleeding and after that I could hardly hear anything," she told IRIN.
IRAN: 19/1 Bam toll nears 45,000
The death toll from last month's devastating earthquake in the ancient Iranian city of Bam may ultimately reach 45,000, officials told IRIN on Monday, making it the country's worst recorded disaster ever. "The official figure, which has been confirmed by the government, is 42,000 people," Hasan Esandiar, head of international operations for the Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS), told IRIN from Bam. "It seems this figure will increase as each day additional bodies are being found." Days earlier, Tehran raised the death toll from the devastating earthquake to 41,000, with a close aide to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei saying on Friday the final figure could reach 45,000, an AFP report said.
AFGHANISTAN: 19/1 Floods in Herat
More than a thousand families have been displaced and many residential areas and agricultural fields affected after severe rainfall and flooding in the western province of Herat. According to the Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS), Thursday's flooding affected Guzara district and some parts of Herat city, the provincial capital. In addition to the families that lost their homes, thousands of acres of agricultural land have been completely destroyed. "Over 500 families have lost their homes and have been displaced in Kul, Becharkhy and Shamaka villages of Guzara, while around 500 other families lost their homes in Herat city as well," Nooruddin Ahmadi, head of ARCS's western region, told IRIN from Herat on Monday. Ahmadi added that the disaster had also destroyed many bridges, schools and mosques. "Around 80 million sq metres of agricultural land had also been destroyed," he maintained.
KYRGYZSTAN: 20/1 Meningitis on the rise
An outbreak of meningitis has been registered in northern Kyrgyzstan, including the capital, Bishkek, where the number of cases is said to be the highest in the country. "In Kyrgyzstan 160 cases of meningitis have been registered, of which 70 percent are in Bishkek and 24 cases in [northern] Chuy valley, possibly due to the density of population and closer interaction of people. In other regions there are only one or two cases, mostly children", Inna Chernova, chief specialist at the Kyrgyz health ministry's department of epidemiological inspection told IRIN in Bishkek. "Every seven to 10 years there is a seasonal growth of the meningitis infection," chief doctor of the republican isolation hospital, Nurisa Muratova, told IRIN.
AFGHANISTAN: 26/1 Major polio campaign
The Afghan Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) on Monday launched a three-day child vaccination campaign against polio by deploying 40,000 volunteers across the country. "This nationwide campaign will cover every district in the country except a very few areas which are not accessible due to heavy snow," Abdullah Fahim, a spokesman for the MoPH, told IRIN in the Afghan capital, Kabul. Afghanistan is among seven countries in the world along with Nigeria, India, Egypt, Niger, Somali and Pakistan that remain polio-endemic.
PAKISTAN: 28/1 UN agencies sign country plans worth US $411
Four United Nations agencies signed their Country Programme Action Plans (CPAP) with the government of Pakistan on Tuesday, pledging to undertake development work worth US $411 million over a five-year period stretching till the end of 2008. The Action Plans contribute to an overall UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF), which was approved by the government in April 2003, and are intended to help Pakistan achieve the Millennium Development Goals. The four agencies - the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations International Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Programme (WFP) - will use a common format in partnership with the government for the first time.
FEBRUARY
TAJIKISTAN: 4/2 US $13 million required for demining
Dushanbe needs at least US $13.5 million in aid over the next five years to remove landmines from its territory, Jonmahmad Rajabov, head of the Tajik Mine Action Centre (TMAC), told IRIN on Wednesday. "This amount could well increase as there is no accurate estimate of how many mines are out there," he said from the Tajik capital. Tajikistan had mines left over from the civil war that raged after the former Soviet republic became independent in 1991, and along its borders with Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. Tashkent mined its Tajik border in an attempt to prevent Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) extremists from entering the country. Tajikistan's central, eastern and Pamir districts, were extensively mined by both sides in the 1992-97 civil conflict.
PAKISTAN: 5/2 UNHCR extends birth certificate scheme to Afghan refugees
A programme pioneered by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the southwestern Pakistani province of Balochistan, which aims to issue birth certificates to all Afghan children born in refugee camps in Pakistan, has been extended to the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), according to an agency press release. "The birth certificates are being issued by UNHCR. They will be signed also by the [Pakistani government's] Project Directorate for Health (PDH)," Jack Redden, the UNHCR spokesman, told IRIN in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. The new document records the baby's name and gender, date and place of birth and the father's name and place of origin, the press release said, adding that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child requires that all children be registered immediately after birth and have the right to a nationality.
CENTRAL ASIA: 6/2 Syrdarya floods due to lack of regional coordination
The Syrdarya river - one of Central Asia's key resources - has flooded some parts of Kazakhstan's southern Kzyl-Orda province after regional governments failed to adhere to a recent agreement to reduce inflows to the river. On Friday, Kazakh state media announced the evacuation of two hundred families living in the Aray and Yagodka agricultural communities in Kzyl-Orda was now under way. "Due to an increase in the water flow, the situation in the Kazalinski district [of Kzyl-Orda province] is characterised by a substantial overflow in low lying areas," Kairzhan Turezhanov, the Kazakh emergency situations agency spokesman told IRIN from the Kazakh commercial capital, Almaty, adding that some parts of a local highway passing near the river had been flooded as well.
TAJIKISTAN: 9/2 ECHO phasing out
The Humanitarian Aid Office of the European Commission (ECHO) will slowly reduce its operations in Tajikistan, following a gradual improvement in humanitarian conditions inside the mountainous state. "Our plan over the next three years is to phase out if the situation remains as it is," Cecile Pichon, ECHO correspondent for Central Asia told IRIN in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe. "Things are gradually stabilising in Tajikistan. Nonetheless, we will continue to monitor the situation should further needs arise." The move reflects what many donors see as a greater need for long-term development assistance to the impoverished Central Asian nation - and less on humanitarian aid - in what could be described as a transitional phase for the country.
UZBEKISTAN: 12/2 World Bank funds water project in Aral Sea region
The government of Uzbekistan and the World Bank have signed a Drainage, Irrigation and Wetlands Improvement Project, worth US $74.55 million, which is "the first meaningful intervention in the Aral Sea Basin to break a vicious cycle of high water applications, water logging and secondary soil salinisation", according to Masood Ahmad, head of the World Band team designing the project. The agreement hopes to increase the productivity of irrigated agriculture, employment and incomes, improve the water quality of the Amu Darya River by safe disposal of drainage effluent and enhancing the quality of wetlands in the Amu Darya delta, an accompanying statement said.
Ahmad added the project would begin to address the problem by substantially improving drainage conditions and significantly improving water use efficiency in the irrigation sector.
KAZAKHSTAN: 13/2 Syrdarya floods - 2,000 people evacuated
In southern Kazakhstan, the water level in the Chardara reservoir - part of the Syrdarya river system - continues to remain high and flood some areas, with another 700 people evacuated over the past two days, government officials told IRIN, expecting, however, that things may return to normal soon. "There is still risk of further flooding and this will probably continue, especially with spring approaching and weather already warming up," Marat Dosymbekov, a senior specialist at the Kazakh Agency for Emergency Situations, said from the Kazakh commercial capital, Almaty, on Friday. The agency said that some parts of the dyke in Korgansha area of the Syrdarya river in the southern Kzyl-Orda province had been washed away on Thursday with the village of Aksy facing the threat of flooding. Given that, some 700 people had been evacuated from the area, bringing the total number of people evacuated since the water started to rise in Chardara in late December to 2,079, the report said.
PAKISTAN: 16/2 Twin earthquakes claim 24 lives
A disaster-hit rural populace in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), their homes and belongings destroyed or damaged by two moderate-intensity earthquakes that claimed at least 24 lives and injured dozens of others on Saturday, were still waiting for government-pledged aid to arrive on Monday, according to an official. "No government aid has arrived so far. The federal government said they were sending some tents and other aid but nothing has reached here so far," Attaullah Khan, the Nazim (administrator) for Batgram, one of the worst-hit sub-districts, told IRIN. The provincial government had also pledged aid but none had arrived, Khan added.
KYRGYZSTAN: 17/2 Avalanches claim four lives
A series of avalanches struck the Bishkek-Osh highway, the only transport route connecting the north and south of the mountainous Central Asian state early Tuesday morning, claiming the lives of at least four people. "The number of casualties is four people and their bodies are being transported to Bishkek," Emil Akmatov, senior public relations and information officer at the civil defence department of the Kyrgyz Emergency Ministry, told IRIN from the capital, Bishkek on Tuesday, admitting, however, that the death toll could rise. Of the seven people hospitalised, six were in good condition, while the seventh victim was in intensive care at the central Toktogul town hospital.
UZBEKISTAN: 17/2 UN keeps humanitarian pipeline in Termez open during winter
As Afghanistan enters a new developmental and reconstruction phase, the United Nations is keeping its aid corridor to the north of that country open by extending a protocol signed with the Government of Uzbekistan for another year to facilitate the delivery of much needed humanitarian assistance through the winter. The Friendship Bridge over the region's Amudarya River served as a critical humanitarian gateway to Afghanistan's north during and after the US-led coalition's war on terror. According to an official of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, a two-year protocol between the UN and the government in December 2001 was a historic document, which proved vital for millions of Afghans facing starvation, hunger and disease following the demise of the hard line Taliban regime in late 2001.
PAKISTAN: 18/2 UNHCR to resume Afghan repatriation
A voluntary repatriation programme for Afghan refugees, run by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), that was suspended in November following the murder of a staff member in Afghanistan, will resume operations in March, according to an agency official. "We were aiming for 1 March. But that is actually [in the Muslim holy month of] Muharram. So we expect we'd do it right after that," Jack Redden, the UNHCR spokesman, told IRIN in the capital, Islamabad. The programme, which has assisted about 1.9 million Afghans to return home from Pakistan since early 2002, is expected to help about 400,000 more refugees to repatriate during 2004, a UNHCR press statement said.
AFGHANISTAN: 20/2 Child soldiers
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has announced that it has made progress in demobilising child soldiers in Afghanistan, an initiative targeting an estimated 8,000 such children in the country. Over the last 23 years of conflict in Afghanistan, thousands of children have been used by warlords and fighting forces. And while hundreds of these have been identified, some 150 have been demobilised in four districts of the northern city of Konduz since the demobilisation programme began in early February. "It is very positive that we have had over 500 young people from over four districts in Konduz that have already come forward in one week," Edward Carwardine, a UNICEF spokesperson, told IRIN on Thursday.
TAJIKISTAN: 25/2 Re-registration of refugees and asylum seekers
In a joint exercise by the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Tajik government, efforts to re-register some 3,000 refugees and asylum seekers in the Central Asian state - the vast majority of them Afghan - are proceeding well. "Tajikistan's protection climate has improved considerably in the past years," Nicholas Coussidis, UNHCR representative in Tajikistan told IRIN in the capital, Dushanbe, on Wednesday. "This re-registration undertaking is a further manifestation of joint efforts with the aim of protecting and assisting refugees and seeking durable solutions for their future." His comments came two days after the UN refugee agency and Tajikistan's State Migration Service (SMS) began a wholesale registration and re-validation of all refugees and asylum seekers in the mountainous former Soviet republic. The exercise aims to collect and verify available information of these individuals, as well as provide them with identification documents.
IRAN: 26/2 Reconstruction still being debated in Bam
Two months after a devastating earthquake struck the southeastern city of Bam on 26 December 2003, killing more than 40,000 and leaving some 100,000 homeless, the majority of the survivors continue to live in tents, while the issue of long-term reconstruction remains unclear. "The majority of the people are still living in tents," Sudi Ahmadzadeh, a national transitional recovery coordinator for United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Bam, told IRIN, adding, that more than half of the survivors were living close to their former houses, while the others had already moved into organised camps. As of Thursday, there were 18 tented camps in Bam, all of them full to capacity and providing a wide range of services, she said, noting, however, that no additional tent camps had been planned, with the immediate concentration on intermediate shelter instead.
AFGHANISTAN: 27/2 NGOs voice concern over recent spate of killings of aid workers
The Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR), an umbrella organisation representing more than 90 national and international NGOs working in Afghanistan, has expressed outrage over yet another fatal attack on the NGO community in less than two weeks. "The NGO community is deeply shocked that within the space of 11 days, nine members of the NGO community have been killed," Barbara Stapleton, advocacy coordinator for ACBAR, told IRIN from the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Friday. "We are very concerned about security and the steps that have been taken to address the deterioration of the situation." Her comments follow the vicious murder of five Afghans working for the Sanyee Development Foundation (SDF), a local NGO active in community development, on Wednesday evening, along a road between Ozbin Khol village and Sarobi in eastern Paktika province.
MARCH
KAZAKHSTAN: 2/3 Flood victims return as river level falls
Close to 2,000 people affected by recent flooding earlier this year in southern Kazakhstan have returned to their homes as water levels in the area continue to stabilise. "The situation is gradually improving and [many] people have returned to their homes," Kairzhan Turezhanov, the Kazakh emergency situations agency spokesman, told IRIN from the western Kazakh city of Aktau on Tuesday. His comments follow the emergency agency's report on Monday stating that some 1,750 people, evacuated after flooding began in early January, had returned to their homes, with around 340 more to follow. The flooding was caused by abnormal water discharges from the Chardara reservoir into the Syrdarya river. As of Sunday the total area flooded was 660 sq km, including 343 houses.
CENTRAL ASIA: 4/3 AIDS epidemic threatens region's economic development
Despite a low prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the five former Soviet republics of Central Asia, home to some 60 million, the epidemic could affect the region's economic development over the next 10 years if necessary measures were not taken immediately, a World Bank (WB) official has warned. "Eastern Europe and Central Asia are experiencing the world's fastest growing HIV/AIDS epidemic and in Central Asia it is at the earliest stages," Merrell Tuck-Primdahl, a senior external relations officer for Europe and Central Asia region at the World Bank, told IRIN from the Irish capital Dublin. Although there is a lack of data on the issue, the available evidence illustrated a sharp increase in the epidemic in the region. "Registered cases have grown exponentially from less than a hundred in 1995 to more than 7,000 in 2003. So, it's a huge increase and these are only the registered cases," she maintained.
AFGHANISTAN: 8/3 Red Crescent continues operations despite attacks
The Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS) is continuing operations in the troubled Zabul region of the country despite a fatal attack on one of its vehicles on Saturday which left one local employee dead and another injured, ARCS officials said on Monday. The attack took place in the Zabul provincial capital, Qalat. "We have not stopped our operations. We are currently reviewing security measures with local security organisations," Salim Bahramand, the ARCS director of international relations, told IRIN in Kabul. The ARCS attack is one of a series of attacks on aid agencies in the south and has added to growing concern among local and international aid workers, who have witnessed over a dozen workers killed in the last three weeks.
IRAN: 8/3 Afghan repatriation continues unabated
Efforts by the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to assist hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees living in Iran to repatriate to their homeland are continuing. "A series of initiatives undertaken by UNHCR such as mobile teams, organising visits of Afghan officials from different provinces to talk to refugees in Iran about opportunities in Afghanistan, as well as some measures taken by the Iranian government, make us hope that numbers will pick up during the summer season," Marie-Helene Verney, a spokeswoman for the refugee agency, told IRIN from Tehran. According to government estimates, more than 1.7 million Afghans live in Iran. The UNHCR believes that number to be closer to one million, with the remaining most likely to be economic or illegal migrants. Afghans can be found in most Iranian cities, with large concentrations in northeastern Khorasan province, as well as in Tehran and Qom.
UZBEKISTAN: 9/3 Drug-related HIV/AIDS cases on the rise
Injecting drug use, fuelled by illicit drug trafficking, is increasing the number of HIV/AIDS cases in southern Uzbekistan, particularly in areas bordering Tajikistan, health officials say. Aknazar Pardaev, the head of the Epidemiological Department of the AIDS Centre in the southern Uzbek city of Karshi, capital of Kashkadarya province, told IRIN that HIV/AIDS was on the rise in the area with injecting drug usage being the main mode of transmission. According to the official statistics, 46 confirmed cases have been registered among the residents of Kashkadarya province as of February 2004. Four cases were registered in 2001, five in 2002, while in 2003 that figure rocketed to 37. The highest rate of HIV infections was in Karshi city, namely 34 cases. There have been two HIV/AIDS related deaths since 1990.
TAJIKISTAN: 10/3 Risk of avalanches
With the weather warming, the emergency authorities in Tajikistan are becoming worried about possible natural disasters, including avalanches, landslides and mudflows. "There are [now] avalanches almost every day," Abdurakhim Radjabov, deputy minister for emergency situations, told IRIN from the capital, Dushanbe, on Wednesday. "It is because the snow is starting to melt." His remarks come a day after an avalanche blocked the only road linking the Ishkashim district of the mountainous Badakhshan autonomous region in the Pamir mountains with the provincial capital of Khorog. No casualties have been reported. Traffic on the communication route was restored on Wednesday. "The road between Ishkashim district and Khorog has been cleared and it is up and running again," Radjabov said.
KAZAKHSTAN: 15/3 Landslide kills 28 in south
A landslide struck southern Kazakhstan in the early hours of Sunday morning, burying some 30 people, the Kazakh emergency ministry reported on Monday. "The incident happened in the early morning when everyone was asleep. Twenty-eight bodies have been dug out so far," ministry spokesman Kairzhan Turezhanov told IRIN from the Talgar district, adding that the number of the dead could rise. It is reported that the landslide buried two buildings in the settlement of Taldybulak in the southern Talgar district, some 20 km east of the Kazakh commercial capital of Almaty, at 1:32 am local time on Sunday. Among those killed by an estimated three million cu.m. of earth were 15 women and six children. The bodies of nine Chinese nationals, who had come to the country to do business, have been recovered.
IRAN: 16/3 Controversy over earthquake relief funds
The Iranian Foreign Ministry has given the Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) $2 million following a demand by the head of IRCS that the Iranian government account for $10 million of foreign aid sent to help the victims of December's deadly earthquake in the southeastern city of Bam. Local newspapers had reported IRCS head, Ahmad-Ali Nourbala, as saying that there was evidence that foreign organisations had provided more than $11.8 million in aid, but IRCS had only received $1.9 million. "Their failure to give a clear answer would lead to national distrust and international disgrace," Reuters quoted Nourbala as saying in the reformist newspaper Hambastegi. "The Red Crescent will not be able to continue providing aid relief to Bam survivors if this trend continues," he said. Nourbala said the Iranian government has so far failed to give the IRCS the amount promised - $7.1 million.
PAKISTAN: 17/3 UNHCR repatriation programme extended to Quetta
A repatriation process run by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to enable Afghan refugees in Pakistan to return to their homeland has been expanded to include the south-western city of Quetta, according to an agency official. "UNHCR resumed its repatriation operations in Quetta on Tuesday. About 31 families, comprising 174 individuals, were sent to Afghanistan on Tuesday after they underwent validation tests at the Iris Verification Centre (IVC) in Quetta," Asif Shahzad, a UNHCR public information official, told IRIN in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
TURKMENISTAN: 26/3 RSF slams press freedom record
Turkmenistan, the most reclusive Central Asian state, has one of the worst records in the world for freedom of expression, according to an official of the Paris-based media freedom watchdog, Reporters Without Borders (RSF). "There is no press freedom. There is no independent press and all newspapers and TVs, etc. are used for propaganda purposes. It is totally under state control. So, even [when] comparing [it] to all the world's countries it is among the worst," Caroline Giraud of RSF's Europe desk told IRIN from Paris. RSF criticised the restricted access to information within the former Soviet republic, including limited access to the Internet, adding that Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's (RFE/RL) Turkmen service and Russian media services were the main sources of information available.
AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN: 30/3 Tripartite refugee commission meets
A three-way commission, mandated to oversee the repatriation of Afghan refugees to their homeland, held its fourth meeting in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on Monday. A spokesman for the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) called the meeting "successful". The Tripartite Commission was created in March 2003, after an agreement was signed between the government of Pakistan, the Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan and UNHCR, which governs the repatriation process for Afghan refugees opting to return home to Afghanistan. "It moved the discussion along and we resolved some of the minor questions. But it also moved us along towards thinking about where we're heading over the next couple of years and beyond," Jack Redden, a UNHCR spokesman, told IRIN in Islamabad.
UZBEKISTAN: 30/3 Tashkent outlines human rights progress
Long criticised internationally for its poor human rights record, Uzbekistan is committed to democratic reforms which will eliminate torture and other abuses, according to a government official. "We are working on these issues [human rights]. Maybe it is not that fast, but the process is going on and it is pretty positive," Ilkhom Zakirov, a spokesman for the Uzbek foreign ministry, told IRIN from the capital, Tashkent on Tuesday. The Uzbek government accepted the recommendations made by UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Theo van Boven, in his report on the country last year. Following his recommendations, the government has subsequently put in place measures to help eliminate torture, Zakirov maintained.
AFGHANISTAN: 31/3 Mass tetanus vaccination targets women
The United Nations children's agency, UNICEF, began a week-long nationwide campaign on Wednesday to immunise four million Afghan females aged 15-45 against tetanus. Maternal and neo-natal tetanus (MNT) is one of the biggest threats to a mother and her newborn child's life in many countries of the world. According to UNICEF, worldwide MNT is responsible for the deaths of 30,000 women and 200,000 infants in developing countries each year. Neo-natal tetanus is often contracted through dirty conditions during the birth. "[Given] the fact that 90 per cent of Afghan women give birth at home, without trained attendants, the campaign to protect women from this disease is critical," Edward Carwardine, a UNICEF spokesman, told IRIN on Wednesday.
APRIL
AFGHANISTAN: 1/4 Berlin conference could yield up to US $9 billion
Afghan officials met donors and international organisations in Berlin on Wednesday and Thursday in a landmark attempt to boost Afghanistan's fragile reconstruction effort. Improving security ahead of elections and clamping down on the burgeoning opium trade are also top priorities for the high-profile meeting. On the first day of the gathering, officials from participating countries and organisations estimated new aid and reconstruction pledges to be at least US $4 billion. But German Overseas Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul said Kabul could receive pledges up to $9 billion spread over three years. Afghan Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani, who is also in Berlin, has said, however that previous pledges "vastly underestimated" Afghanistan's needs.
TAJIKISTAN: 6/4 Quake hits capital
No casualties or damage have been reported in Tajikistan after an earthquake struck the mountainous region early on Tuesday, according to a government official. "No casualties or damage have been reported so far," Abdurakhim Rajabov, deputy head of the Tajik emergency ministry, told IRIN from the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, on Tuesday. The quake measured up to 6.6 on the Richter scale at its peak, but according to the emergency agency, it reached between 4 and 4.5 on the Richter scale in the Tajik capital at 2:20 am local time. The earthquake was felt throughout remote regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan much of which suffer from poor accessibility. "The epicentre of the quake was some 250 km southeast of Dushanbe in Afghanistan," Rajabov added.
UZBEKISTAN: 10/4 Iodine deficiency diseases increasing
Doctors are reporting a worrying increase in iodine-deficiency related illnesses in southern Uzbekistan. Begam Kurbanov, head of the provincial endocrinology hospital based in Termez, capital of the southern Surkhandarya province, told IRIN that the number of such diseases was on the rise in the region. Fifteen-year-old Sarvinoz Achildieva suffers from goitre. It's one symptom of iodine deficiency resulting in the thyroid gland in the throat enlarging abnormally. This mass compresses the trachea (windpipe) and oesophagus (swallowing tube) leading to symptoms such as coughing, lack of breath while sleeping, and the sensation that food is getting stuck in the upper throat. Once a goitre gets this large, surgical removal is the only means to relieve the symptoms.
AFGHANISTAN: 16/4 Forum sets development priorities
Delegates from more that 40 international organisations participated in a two-day conference organised by the Afghanistan Development Forum (ADF) in the capital Kabul on Tuesday. Chaired by the government, the meeting discussed the financial implications of the nation's development priorities and how donor money can be best utilised. According to officials, the conference's priority is to hammer out a strategy for the US $8.2 billion that was pledged at a donor conference in Berlin in early April. "The challenge now for us to create the institutions and the capacity that would enable our people to come out of poverty and live in security," Afghan President Hamid Karzai told the conference. Karzai said his government had worked out a budget for the billions pledged that would boost security, accelerate the demobilisation of hundreds of private militias and combat the flourishing opium trade his country has become infamous for propagating.
KYRGYZSTAN: 18/4 Landslide kills five
Five Kyrgyz children lost their lives in a landslide over the weekend, a spokesman for the Central Asian country's emergencies ministry said on Monday. "They had set out for school but seem to have been buried under the landslide," the ministry's spokesman Emil Akhmatov told AFP. Fearing a further landslide, rescuers decided on Monday to call off their search at the site in the Kara-Suisky district, around 200 km north of the southern city of Osh, Akhmatov said. About one million cubic metres of soil and rock were displaced in the tragedy. Landslides and avalanches are common in this former Soviet republic that boasts some of the world's highest mountains. Fatalities are also relatively common in Kyrgyzstan due to the unsuitable location and flimsy construction of many homes.
PAKISTAN: 20/4 UNHCR camps close
Refugee camps set up by Pakistan to accommodate Afghans fleeing their homeland after the US-led war on terror began in Afghanistan in late 2001 will be closed by September, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) announced on Monday. Ruud Lubbers told a news conference at the conclusion of a three-nation tour, where he met officials in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan to focus on the refugee situation, that he had discussed the matter in detail with both the president and prime minister of Pakistan. About 200,000 residents remain in so-called "new" camps, located close to Pakistan's long and often porous border with Afghanistan. The new camps were set up to cope with the exodus of frightened Afghans fleeing their country after a US-led war campaign to dislodge the Taliban started in October 2001.
AFGHANISTAN: 28/4 Two aid workers killed in attack on NGO
Following an attack on an Afghan NGO which killed two local aid workers and a soldier in the Panjwayi district of southern Kandahar city on Monday evening, an NGO security body has called on aid agencies to be more cautious in the field. "We call on the NGO community to raise awareness and take more and more precautions to protect their staff," Nick Downie, a project coordinator for the Afghan NGO Security Office (ANSO), told IRIN on Wednesday in the capital Kabul. ANSO's call follows the incident in Panjwayi when gunmen riding in a car opened fire on a building housing an Afghan charity, Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (CHA). According to local authorities, a soldier and two CHA aid workers were killed and another six soldiers were wounded.
KYRGYZSTAN: 26/4 Landslides in south kill more than 30
Almost 35 people are reported dead and a dozen injured following a series of landslides over the past three days in southern Kyrgyzstan. "A landslide buried seven houses today [Monday morning] in the Budalyk village of the [southern] Alay district," Emil Akmatov, a spokesman for the Kyrgyz Emergency Situations Ministry's civil defence unit, told IRIN from the capital, Bishkek. According to the Ministry of Ecology and Emergency Situations (MEES) of Kyrgyzstan, 33 people were reported dead in the incident, including 16 children, 10 of whom were under the age of six. Some 12 village residents were taken to a hospital in Gulcho, the capital of Alay district, with five of them still undergoing treatment as of Monday afternoon. The ministry's statement came after three separate landslides struck the south of the former Soviet republic. "There have been landslides one after another over the past three days," Akmatov said.
PAKISTAN: 28/4 Afghan repatriation increasing
A repatriation programme for Afghan refugees intending to return to their war-ravaged country has gathered pace since it resumed in early March, with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) staff saying they expected the exodus to increase further, provided the situation continues to improve in Afghanistan. "The pace has already picked up. We expect it to go up even further, provided the situation in Afghanistan continues to improve," Richard Ndaula, a UNHCR associate repatriation officer, told IRIN in the north-western city of Peshawar, capital of North-Western Frontier Province (NWFP) which borders Afghanistan. The programme, which began in early 2002 and is scheduled to run until 2006 according to a tripartite agreement between the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan and UNHCR, was suspended late last year following the murder of a UNHCR employee in Afghanistan and resumed only after both governments pledged to increase security.
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