MAY
AFGHANISTAN: NGO continues operating despite armed attack
Following an armed attack on a vehicle of the Afghan Development Agency (ADA), in which one ADA staff member was killed and another injured, in central Afghanistan on Saturday, the NGO said it would continue activities despite the incident. "It was a shocking and tragic occurrence; however, we will continue to deliver relief and development services in all our regions," Abdul Raziq Samadi, the director of ADA, told IRIN in the capital, Kabul, on 5 May.
AFGHANISTAN: UN suspends mine-clearance after staff ambushed
Following an ambush on an ambulance of the United Nations Mine Action Centre for Afghanistan (UNMACA) in Afghanistan's volatile southeastern province of Zabol late 5 May, UNMACA announced that it had suspended operations in insecure areas of the south until adequate security was provided. The attack left two UNMACA Afghan staff injured. "The incident was a setback to our operations, and now we realise there are certain areas we won't be able to operate [in]," Tammy Hall, an external relations officer for UNMACA, told IRIN in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Wednesday. She added that they would suspend operations in remote areas lacking security.
TAJIKISTAN: TB on the rise in the south
In Tajikistan, health experts expressed serious concern over the incidence of TB in some parts of the country. A report compiled by them indicated a rise in the incidence of TB in the northern Khujand Province, Deutsche Welle reported on 4 May, adding that the number of cases there had increased by 26 percent since 1998.
CENTRAL ASIA: Region vulnerable to SARS, says WHO
The World Health Organisation (WHO) told IRIN on 8 May, that despite no reported cases, Central Asian states were vulnerable to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) that has killed more than 200 people and infected 5,000 others in neighbouring China. "There is lots of travel between Mongolian China and Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, with few measures in place to prevent SARS from spreading," Bernard Ganter, WHO's regional adviser for communicable diseases, told IRIN from the Danish capital, Copenhagen.
TAJIKISTAN: Donors pledge US $900 million in aid
Donors and aid agencies have pledged to increase aid to Tajikistan, the poorest of the Central Asian nations, in an effort to fight increasing poverty there. "Tajikistan is still trying to get back on track, and there needs to be a more concerted effort in order for things to change," the country manager for the World Bank in Tajikistan, Cevdet Denizer, told IRIN from the capital, Dushanbe on 7 May. Pledges totalling US $900 million over the next three years were made for a poverty-focused programme presented by the Tajik government to the Consultative Group for Tajikistan during a meeting chaired by the World Bank in Dushanbe between 2 and 3 May. About two-thirds of the total was pledged in grants.
TAJIKISTAN: Floods hit Soghd region
Floods hit the Asht District of the northern Soghd Region over the weekend, killing a woman, destroying roads and bridges, and bringing down power lines, the Tajik newspaper Leninabadskaya Pravda reported 8 May. The flooding caused material damage amounting to over US $350,000, the report said, quoting a source at the Tajik Emergency Situations Ministry. As a result of torrential rains between 23 and 25 April in the district, "53 houses were partially destroyed. The floods broke and swept away 6 km of water pipes. A total of 15 km of footpaths, six bridges, electric power lines, and fortification facilities stretching for 20 km were damaged in the village of Ponghoz," the report added.
PAKISTAN: Non-Afghan refugees given right to work
For the first time ever, non-Afghan refugees in Pakistan have been given the chance to work legally. "Refugees have no real status in this country, so this will give them protection against arbitrary arrest and deportation, and allows them to work, giving them considerable protection," a spokesman for the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Jack Redden, told IRIN in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on 14 May. The status was given following an agreement between UNHCR and Pakistan's National Aliens Registration Authority (NARA), established under the interior ministry in 2001.
PAKISTAN: More accessible repatriation centre opens for refugees
On Monday the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the government of Pakistan opened a new type of Voluntary Repatriation Centre (VRC) for Afghan refugees in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), renaming it an Iris Validation Centre. The Iris device identifies people through the iris in their eyes on photographs taken for repatriation forms. It converts a photographic image of the iris into a digital code and only requires a second to check whether the person has already received assistance. "The old VRC in the Takhta Baig area of Peshawar has been closed down and the new one in Hayatabad is far more accessible for the refugees as it is right in the middle of the Afghan community," a spokesman for UNHCR in Pakistan, Jack Redden told IRIN from the capital, Islamabad on 13 May.
TAJIKISTAN: Locust infestation threatens food security
The UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has warned of a devastating locust infestation in southern Tajikistan. "It has already started in the southern regions, especially Pyandhz, where 3,000 hectares have been infested, and of these 1,500 hectares were treated as of 5 May," the national programme assistant for FAO, Artem Phashenko, told IRIN from the Tajik capital, Dushanbe. The country is prone to locust infestations, and this year FAO plans to treat 72,000 ha of land, costing US $340,000 under a 16-month programme for 2003. An FAO statement said the objective of the project was to provide urgent assistance to the Tajik government to control the expected locust outbreak, thereby to reduce damage to crops during the agricultural season. This is with a view to safeguarding the food security of some 12,250 of the most vulnerable households and farming units.
TAJIKISTAN: Measles outbreak
Local media reported a measles outbreak affecting around 1,000 people in the northern Soghd Region on 14 May. The disease is prevalent in Bobojon Ghafurov and Isfara districts, and in Khujand city. Mainly children aged between seven and 10, and also between 16 and 17, have contracted the disease. The outbreak is being attributed to the fact that during Soviet times children had compulsory vaccinations at the age of one and later at six and seven, but such immunisation was impossible between 1992 and 1999 due to a shortage of vaccines. Vaccination of the population has now been deemed necessary in all areas of northern Tajikistan.
AFGHANISTAN: Refugee returns diminishing due to insecurity
Over 100,000 Afghan refugees have so far returned home this year, but this is just one-quarter of the number of those repatriated over the same period last year, the reduction being due to deteriorating security in their country, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) confirmed to IRIN on 23 May. "It was never expected that we would have the same figures as last year, and those whom we were anxious to see go left immediately. But we know that security is also an influencing factor," the spokesman for UNHCR in Pakistan, Jack Redden, told IRIN from the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. Of the 100,000 returnees this year, more than 65,000 were from Pakistan and nearly 35,000 from Iran.
AFGHANISTAN: New centre for malnourished children in the north
Pakai, aged 25 looks happy for the first time in months as she cradles her sickly young baby. "We thought that he would certainly die because he was so weak but now he is improving," she told IRIN in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif. Pakai and a dozen more mothers nurse their malnourished babies in the first Therapeutic Feeding Centre (TFC) to be opened in a government hospital in northern Afghanistan. This new centre is being established and operated with assistance from the international NGO, Save the Children and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). According to several nutritional surveys carried out by different aid agencies over the past year, up to 16,000 children in northern Afghanistan were severely malnourished and needed supplementary feeding to recover and survive.
AFGHANISTAN: Second round of nationwide polio campaign begins
The second round of a three-day nationwide campaign to immunise over six million children under the age of five against polio was launched in Afghanistan on 20 May. On the same day, the UN announced that the country stood on the verge of eradicating the crippling disease. The message came as the United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF reported that no cases of polio had yet been identified in Afghanistan this year. "This year we know that there is no case of polio found in the country, this is the first step towards a polio-free Afghanistan," said Edward Carwardine, a UNICEF spokesman, noting that a country had to have three consecutive years with no cases of polio in order for it to be declared polio free.
PAKISTAN: Waiting area on Chaman border closing down
The waiting area for Afghan asylum seekers on Pakistan's southwestern border with Afghanistan will close at the end of July, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) confirmed to IRIN on 19 May. "It is unclear how many people don't want to move, but it is a tense area and we feel this is a good opportunity for those who want to return to go home," the UNHCR spokesman for Pakistan, Jack Redden, said. "The makeshift refugee camp was inside Pakistani territory, and the government did not want it to continue there," he added. The move follows the first meeting between the two governments and the UN refugee agency under the Tripartite Commission established earlier this year.
KAZAKHSTAN: 3 die in earthquake
Three people died in a powerful earthquake that rocked southern Kazakhstan early on 23 May, the Central Asian state's emergencies agency said. "According to the information we have at this moment, three people died. A woman with fractured legs was hospitalised," the agency's duty officer told Reuters. The epicentre of the tremor, which measured up to 6.5 on the Richter scale, was in a steppe area some 300 km west of Kazakhstan's commercial capital and largest city, Almaty, the agency said. Only two houses were destroyed near the epicentre, where there are three villages. But the duty officer added: "Practically all the mud-brick houses there were seriously damaged." He said around 24,000 people lived in the quake-affected area. In Almaty itself, the quake was measured at about 3.5 on the Richter scale, but no damage was reported in the city. The tremor was also felt in Bishkek, the capital of neighbouring Kyrgyzstan, but no casualties were reported there.
KYRGYZSTAN: World Bank offers poverty reduction aid
The World Bank will offer US $171 million in aid to Kyrgyzstan over the next four years, it was reported on 19 May, mainly aimed at helping the government's programme to reduce widespread poverty. "Despite a relatively strong economic performance and pro-poor growth, with poorer people increasing their incomes faster than average, huge challenges remain for the country," the World Bank said in a statement. "Investment has been limited, and infrastructure and social service systems have been slowly deteriorating since independence."
AFGHANISTAN: Heavy floods kill three, destroy homes
Three people were killed and 30 houses destroyed as a result of heavy rainfall and floods in northeastern Afghanistan. "The floods occurred last Monday in Baghlan, Konduz and Takhar provinces," Manoel de Almeida e Silva, a spokesman for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), told IRIN in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on 29 May. According to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the floods occurred near the town of Pol-e Khomri, the capital of the Baghlan Province, in an area occupied by internally displaced people and, as a result, 30 houses were completely destroyed and 70 partially damaged.
AFGHANISTAN: Nationwide anti-diarrhoea campaign
More than 50 percent of deaths among Afghan children under the age of five are caused by diarrhoea, the Afghan health ministry announced on 26 May, adding that the disease is becoming a serious problem for the country where child mortality is already unacceptably high. "Already this year, the incidence of diarrhoeal diseases in [the capital] Kabul has begun to increase, with more new cases being reported every week," Seyyed Wahidollah Majid, the director of hygiene education and environmental care at the Afghan Ministry of Public Health (MOPH), told IRIN in Kabul.
JUNE
AFGHANISTAN: Water a serious problem nationwide
As the world marks Environment and Water Day on 6 June, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Afghanistan has announced that a major part of the country is experiencing water scarcity. "Water is a major problem in rural and urban areas due to water scarcity, mismanagement and damaged water systems," Pekka Haavisto, the chairman of the UNEP Afghanistan Task Force, told IRIN in the capital, Kabul. According to the UNEP Post-Conflict Environment Assessment report on Afghanistan, whereas the country as a whole uses less than one-third of its potential 75,000 million cubic metres of water resources, regional differences in supply, inefficient use and wastage mean that a major part of the country experiences scarcity.
KYRGYZSTAN: HIV situation in south continues to worsen
Drug trafficking and addiction continue to strengthen the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in southern Kyrgyzstan. While a total of only 213 official cases have been registered in the three southern provinces of Osh, Batken and Jalal-Abad, health experts assess the real figure to be closer to 3,000. "The situation is clearly worsening," Tugelbay Mamaev, the head physician at the regional AIDS centre in the provincial capital of Osh, told IRIN, citing drug addiction and drug trafficking as the root causes.
AFGHANISTAN: Government acts to strengthen security after suicide attack
The Afghan government is taking steps to strengthen security after a suicide bomber attacked a bus carrying German international peacekeeping forces in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on 7 June, killing four soldiers and wounding 31. It was the worst incident of its kind to date for the UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). "We have intensified intelligence on the ground and have started monitoring some suspected and identified elements' movements," Hillaluddin Hellal, the deputy interior minister, told IRIN in Kabul.
KYRGYZSTAN: TB remains problematic in rural areas and prisons
While there have been some signs of improvement, tuberculosis (TB) continues to remain a major health concern in Kyrgyzstan. Of the country's five million inhabitants, those in rural areas and the state's overcrowded prisons are most at risk. "The situation with TB in rural areas is stabilising", Oscon Moldokulov, a liaison officer with the World Health Organisation (WHO), told IRIN from the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, on 11 June, noting, however, that case detection for the disease still fell short of the WHO's target of 70 percent.
TAJIKISTAN: Aid efforts under way after torrential rains kill three
Aid efforts were continuing on 9 June after torrential rains swept through the Penjikent district of Tajikistan's northern Sughd province, killing at least three and leaving three missing over the weekend. "The situation is being assessed and at this stage the immediate needs of the affected population are being addressed," Marzia Nazarova, a senior coordination assistant with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Tajikistan, told IRIN from the Tajik capital, Dushanbe. Valentin Gatzinski, the head of OCHA in Tajikistan told IRIN that the country had an unusual spring precipitation with a long, cold and wet season. "A number of mud/landslides have already occurred, though the weekend saw the heaviest rains, accompanied by stormy winds, in the north of the country," he said.
AFGHANISTAN: Aid organisations call for strengthened security
In one of the broadest appeals made to date, nearly 80 humanitarian, human rights and conflict prevention groups have come together to call for an expanded stabilisation security role for NATO as it prepares to take over peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan in early August. "It demonstrates the growing concern of the aid community about insecurity in the country," Paul O'Brien, the advocacy coordinator for CARE International, one of the 79 organisations signatory to the petition, told IRIN from the Afghan capital, Kabul, on 17 June.
KYRGYZSTAN: Health experts warn of possible malaria outbreak
Health experts warn of a possible malaria outbreak in Kyrgyzstan, the south of which was affected by the disease last year. "A possible outbreak of malaria, especially in the southern provinces of Kyrgyzstan, can happen this year," Nurbolot Usenbaev, the deputy director-general of the sanitary-epidemic inspection department of the health ministry, told IRIN from the capital, Bishkek on 18 June. Whereas there had been only 28 officially registered cases of malaria in 2001, that number rose to 2,744 in 2002, he noted.
PAKISTAN: Rehabilitation of former refugee settlement areas
As the repatriation drive of Afghan refugees continues, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Pakistani government have agreed to rehabilitate areas being vacated by the refugees. "Once the refugees have left the area, the structures need to be rehabilitated, because they are an environmental hazard," Abdul Akbar, the public relations officer for Pakistan's Federal Minister for Water and Power, Kashmir Affairs, States and Frontier Regions, told IRIN in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on 25 June.
PAKISTAN: First reported HIV-positive cases among intravenous drug users
Pakistan's National Aids Control Programme (NACP) has confirmed nine new cases of HIV among drug users in the southern Sindh Province, the first to be detected among intravenous drug users in the country. "It is shocking, because this is the first time we have found HIV-positive people among drug users, and this is worrying," Sharaf Ali Shah, the head of the NACP in Sindh, told IRIN from the provincial capital, Karachi, on 26 June. According to Shah, the cases were discovered following the testing of a prisoner who was using heroin in jail in Larkana, some 300 km north of Karachi. The police reacted to this one case by rounding up some 60 drug addicts and carrying out HIV tests on them over the past week.
TURKMENISTAN: High infant immunisation rates reported
It's late in the afternoon and six-month-old Maya wails after receiving an injection that will protect her from mumps, tetanus and polio, administered at a small clinic outside the Turkmen capital, Ashgabat. As the screaming dies down and her mother bundles her out, another baby is laid on the vaccination table. The nurse administering the vaccine has been at it for six hours nonstop. "Almost 50 done today," she announces as she prepares another syringe.Turkmenistan has one of the highest infant vaccination coverage rates in the region, IRIN learnt on Monday. "Vaccination rates among under-twos currently run at around 95 percent," Aliyeva Sofiya, head of the epidemiology department of the Turkmen health ministry, told IRIN in Ashgabat.
TURKMENISTAN: Aid pipeline to Afghanistan scaling back
Although 80,000 mt of food sponsored by World Food Programme (WFP) has been transited via Turkmenistan into northern Afghanistan and Tajikistan in the past 12 months, the amount is diminishing as emergency food needs in the region change, IRIN learnt on 26 June. "Over the past year, approximately 78,000 mt of WFP food crossed Turkmenabad in Turkmenistan bordering northwestern Afghanistan, with a monthly average of 6,500 mt," Sewoo Kim, a WFP reports officer in the Afghan capital, Kabul, told IRIN.
UZBEKISTAN: Afghan refugee numbers confirmed
There were between 6,000 to 7,000 Afghans in Uzbekistan, office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) confirmed 23 June. Of the 3,500 registered by the agency, fewer than 2,800 of those were recognised as refugees under UNHCR's mandate. In this context, a UN official observed that Uzbekistan lacked both refugee legislation and a refugee determination procedure, and had yet to accede to any of the international instruments on refugees, such as the UN Convention of 1951 or the protocol of 1967.
JULY
AFGHANISTAN: Bomb explosion kills two in Kabul
The Afghan government announced that two men were killed when a bomb prematurely exploded on 1 July at 21:00 local time in the Pol-e Charkhi district, three kilometres from the Afghan National Army training centre and German peacekeeping base in the east of the capital, Kabul. "One person was smashed to pieces and was beyond recognition and the other was recognised as a resident of the same locality," Afghan Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali told IRIN in Kabul on 3 July.
AFGHANISTAN: Amnesty expresses concern over UK's "forcible return" approach
Sitting in a relative's dark, tiny room with no electricity and telephone in the capital, Kabul, Nik Mohammad, a newly deported Afghan from Britain, told IRIN he could not decide whether to go home to the troubled southern city of Ghazni, as there were clear security threats. "I heard there were two terrorist incidents and rocket attacks in Ghazni only this week and there is no work at all," said the 28-year-old Afghan, who had gone to Britain during the Taliban period in 2000, and was deported together with 43 other Afghans on 3 July.
KAZAKHSTAN: Radioactive levels in Semipalatinsk remain problematic
Levels of radioactivity in northeastern Kazakhstan's former Semipalatinsk nuclear testing area remain a source of concern, IRIN learnt on 3 July. One of three sites across the former Soviet Union where hundreds of nuclear tests occurred until 1990, its legacy continues to this day. "The radioactive situation has worsened," Larisa Ptitskaya, the director for the institute for radioactive security and ecology at the National Nuclear Centre of Kazakhstan, told IRIN from Kurchatov town, 130 km from Semipalatinsk. Attributing the downturn to both human and climatic factors, she noted that the radioactivity was moving as a result of dust flows and steppe fires in the region.
KYRGYZSTAN: Human trafficking on the rise
Officials of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) have expressed concern over human trafficking in Kyrgyzstan, which is said to be on the rise due to poverty, high unemployment and inadequate legal regulation. "The risk of being trafficked remains high and there have been numerous victims applying for assistance," Damira Smanalieva, the IOM project director in the capital, Bishkek, told IRIN on 3 July. She said there could be countless other victims who are scared of the law-enforcement authorities or afraid to come forward for other reasons.
KYRGYZSTAN: Flood and emergency preparedness in the south
Authorities in southern Kyrgyzstan have urged the government to declare the south an emergency area and develop a programme to move people from disaster-exposed mountainous villages to more secure places. There have been more than 50 natural disasters in the region this year alone -floods, mud-slides and earthquakes. In April, a landslide triggered by heavy rains and melting snow slammed into Karataryk, a village of between 200 and 300 people in Uzgen District about 100 km east of Osh, and killed 38 people.
PAKISTAN: First National Human Development Report launched
The United Nations Development Fund's (UNDP) first National Human Development Report on Pakistan was launched in the capital, Islamabad, on 1 July, highlighting dangerous work for low pay, child labour, and poor health and education. The report, which took two years to put together, found that women and children were the most vulnerable and rural Pakistanis at a disadvantage compared to their urban counterparts. The document is the first comprehensive audit of Pakistani social, health, education and economic conditions.
TAJIKISTAN: WFP closes Pamir aid corridor to Afghanistan
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has halted logistics operations in Tajikistan's eastern border crossing of Ishkashim, thus closing one of its major Central Asian aid corridors to Afghanistan. "We are adapting to new realities, and now that the food emergency is over in Afghanistan, we have to look at cost-effective ways of providing supplies," Ardag Meghdessian, WFP's country director, told IRIN in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe on 3 July.
AFGHANISTAN: Key humanitarian route closes for upgrading
The principal humanitarian route linking the capital Kabul and northern Afghanistan will be closed for three months for badly-needed reconstruction work ahead of the winter, a government official has told IRIN on 8 July. The Salang tunnel - about 180 km north of Kabul - is the main access route from the capital and the only all-weather direct route between the north and south of the country. It was used extensively by aid convoys from Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan and played an important role in keeping central parts of the country fed, since it was reopened last year following war damage and neglect.
AFGHANISTAN: Mudslides and other disasters underline lack of preparedness
Following deadly flooding in southern and northeastern provinces of Afghanistan last week that left more than 100 dead or missing, the UN reported on 6 July that more people were feared killed after serious mudslides in the Shibar district of the central Bamian Province. "The situation is considered serious with up to 19 people missing," Manoel de Almieda e Silva, a UN Assistant Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) spokesman, told IRIN in the Afghan capital, Kabul. According to the spokesman, an evaluation team composed of UNAMA, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and government officials had gone to the area on Saturday to assess damage in the Ghandak valley of Bamian Province.
PAKISTAN: New study suggests Afghan war has led to increase in HIV/AIDS
A recent US study has suggested that the war in Afghanistan in 2001 led to a higher HIV risk among drug users in neighbouring Pakistan and warns that immediate action is needed to prevent an epidemic. The study's principal author, Dr Steffanie Strathdee, said the report highlighted how the effects of military action can be more far-reaching than initial casualty assessments show. "Our study illustrates how complex emergencies like war can directly or indirectly exacerbate vulnerabilities to infectious diseases, in this case by leading to increases in needle sharing," Strathdee told IRIN from the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, USA.
PAKISTAN: Afghan refugees continue returning despite border disputes
The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) announced at the weekend that it has facilitated the return of more than 200,000 Afghan refugees from Pakistan to Afghanistan so far this year. Despite this, agency officials believe that only about half of the estimated 600,000 returns planned for this year will actually take place. "It's been pretty consistent at this rate since early May," UNHCR spokesman Jack Redden told IRIN in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on 7 July. Redden said that the ongoing border skirmishes between Afghan and Pakistani forces along the eastern Afghan border in Nangarhar Province, and the ransacking of the Pakistani embassy in the Afghan capital, Kabul, had not adversely affected the refugee flow.
TURKMENISTAN: Providing health services on the Afghan border
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), in conjunction with the Turkmen government and USAID, has been working to provide reproductive health facilities in the southeast of the desert nation in order to bring care to isolated communities and assist Afghans living on or near the border, an official of UNFPA has told IRIN. "With resources the way they are in neighbouring Afghanistan, UNFPA Turkmenistan has been trying to offer reproductive health facilities to thousands of Afghans who cross into the country looking for hospitals or clinics," UNFPA national programme officer Ezizgeldy Hellenov told IRIN in the second city of Turkmenabad.
KYRGYZSTAN: Diseases related to iodine deficiency increasing in south
Iodine deficiency in southern Kyrgyzstan continues to be a source of concern among health officials in the region, IRIN was told on 10 July. Madina is 20 years old and lives in the southern regional capital of Osh. Despite repeated requests, she is reluctant to marry. "I will think about marriage when I get cured," she told IRIN, trying to withhold her tears. Madina suffers from iodine deficiency and goitre - an acute swelling of the thyroid gland - and is afraid of giving birth to a physically or mentally disabled child.
AFGHANISTAN: Sandstorms affect over ten thousand people
The United Nations in Kabul reported on 23 July that more than 12,000 people living in 57 villages had been badly affected by serious sandstorms in the Lash Juwayan and Shib Koh districts of western Farah province. "Up to 20 villages had to be evacuated because they were covered in sand which was banked up against the walls of homes and compounds," Manoel de Almieda el Silva, spokesman for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), told IRIN. The UN spokesman said the storms had left hundreds of people homeless, destroyed crops and contaminated water supplies.
AFGHANISTAN: Development potential in new census
Mohammad Salim and his colleague had walked for half a day to reach a six-member family living in an isolated part of the Yakawolang valley in the central province of Bamian. The reason for the journey, and for thousands of others over coming weeks was to collect information for Afghanistan's first post-conflict census. The census results will be an important developmental tool for post-conflict Afghanistan. "Agencies will use the information to make sure their programmes are effective. This means delivering their services to the right place, in the most appropriate manner and monitoring the results to make any changes that are necessary," Joseph Crowley of the UN's Afghanistan Information Management Service (AIMS) told IRIN.
PAKISTAN: Chaman waiting area closed
A makeshift settlement for Afghan asylum seekers on the southern Pakistan/Afghan border was closed down on Tuesday, as the last convoy of settlers were transported back to Afghanistan. "In general the move went very smoothly. But the convoy was held up at Spin Buldak in Afghanistan due to security concerns. However, they crossed into Afghanistan at 1 p.m. (local time)," a spokesman for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Babar Baloch, told IRIN on 22 July from Quetta, the provincial capital of Baluchistan in southwestern Pakistan.
TAJIKISTAN: Malaria back with a vengeance, experts say
Malaria remains a source of concern in Tajikistan due in part to the collapse of preventive measures after the country gained independence in 1991. Cases of the deadly malaria falciparum have increased in the past year. "The current situation with malaria in Tajikistan is very similar to that of 2002," Nazira Artykova, head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) office in Tajikistan, told IRIN from the capital, Dushanbe, adding that according to official statistics, the total number of registered cases for the first six months of 2003 was 1,474, showing a decrease of 3.1 percent compared to 1,521 incidences in 2002.
UZBEKISTAN: TB still problematic in Karakalpakstan, experts say
Health experts say that cases of TB remain high in Uzbekistan, particularly in Karakalpakstan autonomous republic in the northwest of the country. "Karakalpakstan is probably the region with the most difficult situation with regard to TB, with the highest morbidity and mortality rates," Zakir Khodjaev, head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) mission in Uzbekistan, told IRIN in the capital, Tashkent on 24 July. "It is too early to say that the situation has stabilised because the DOTS [Directly Observed Treatment Short-course] programme being implemented has not covered all the districts of Karakalpakstan yet."
CENTRAL ASIA-KAZAKHSTAN: Reassessing infant mortality figure
While Kazakh official statistics continue to record a drop in infant and child mortality figures, such figures may not be an accurate portrayal of the real situation. "It's too early to say, given the contradictory nature of the two sources of data being used," Phillippe Heffinck, area representative for the UN children's agency, UNICEF, told IRIN in the Kazakh commercial capital, Almaty, on 23 July. Like other Central Asian countries, the oil and gas-rich nation has maintained the former Soviet definition of live birth, which is considerably looser than the World Health Organisation (WHO)-recommended global definition. A new UNICEF report issued on Tuesday calls for countries in Central Asia and elsewhere to reassess how they compile infant mortality figures so a more accurate picture of child health can be established.
TAJIKISTAN: Minor earthquake
An earthquake with a magnitude of five on the Richter scale hit Tajikistan on 26 July, but no casualties or major damage were reported. Its epicentre was 220 km northeast of the capital Dushanbe, and the emergency situations ministry said that no casualties had been reported from the area.
AFGHANISTAN: Over 20 die in flooding
The Afghan government announced on 31 July that at least 20 people had been reported dead following serious flooding and landslides in the Panjshir valley in the eastern province of Parvan this week. "Over 20 people are reported to have died, while many houses are destroyed," Sultan Ebadi, the director of the Office of Disaster Preparedness (ODP), told IRIN. According to the ODP, the flood was the result of a massive landslide, which destroyed a large dam in the valley. "Our teams are in the area, but unfortunately no assistance has been provided to the victims' families," Ebadi said, noting that the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development had sent some tents, but these had yet to arrive.
PAKISTAN: More deaths as rains batter Karachi
Heavy monsoon rains continued their relentless downpour in the southern province of Sindh on 28 July, claiming at least another five lives, causing even more havoc and hampering relief efforts, officials said on Tuesday. The southern port city of Karachi has received the most rainfall in a single day since the rain began in earnest almost two weeks ago, and more rain is expected. "We received almost 108 mm of rain yesterday [Monday], and expect moderate to heavy showers within the next 36 to 48 hours," Hasrat Mir, an official of the meteorological office in Karachi, told IRIN.
AUGUST
TAJIKISTAN: Slight drop in infant mortality
Infant mortality has declined in Tajikistan, according to data from the health ministry, with only 273 deaths reported in the first six months of the year, down from 293 in the same period last year, an official said on 1 August. "It's a good sign that the trend seems to be dropping, but I don't think that it is statistically very significant," a United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) project officer, Dr Tarek Hussain, told IRIN from the capital, Dushanbe.
TURKMENISTAN: Afghan refugees want third-country resettlement
Most Afghans seeking refuge in Turkmenistan fled there in the early 1990s while the Taliban, were fighting a series of battles for control of the north of the country, thereby displacing hundreds of thousands of people. Others, like Rana, with links to the Najibullah regime, arrived earlier. Although between 400 and 500 Afghans have taken the plunge and returned, like many of the 1,100 Afghan refugees left in Turkmenistan, Rana has no real desire to go back home, uncertain that there will be any chance of a job or education for her two children. "Nothing has really got better there; OK there's no more war, but things are better for us here," she told IRIN. Around 800 Afghan refugees in Turkmenistan are ethnic Turkmen and have become so well integrated that most have no plans to go back.
AFGHANISTAN: Major locust threat averted, says FAO
The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says food production has been secured following successful intervention this year to control a plague of locusts. "This is encouraging and a good start for the agricultural sector," the senior officer of migratory pests, Clive Elliott, told IRIN from FAO headquarters in Rome on 4 August. It was estimated that more than 400,000 ha of rain-fed wheat and a further 190,000 ha of irrigated wheat could have been affected in a country where up to 85 percent of the population is dependent on agriculture.
PAKISTAN: Health concerns persist in flood-ravaged Sindh
The worst is still to come as people in flood-ravaged areas seek to resume their routines and to return to lives badly hit by the rains in the southern province of Sindh, with medical facilities and doctors bracing themselves for a spate of disease outbreaks and, possibly, even epidemics, according to a physician in the port city of Karachi on 6 July.
UZBEKISTAN: Infant mortality figures
The issue of infant mortality remains a source of concern in Uzbekistan. Given current trends, it is unlikely that the country will be able to reduce under-five mortality rates by two-thirds by 2015 - one of eight millennium development goals the country has targeted. "There has been a slight decrease in infant mortality over recent years, but it remains high," Klara Yadgarova, the deputy head of the mother and child health department at the health ministry, told IRIN from the capital, Tashkent.
KAZAKHSTAN: Minor earthquake
An earthquake with a magnitude of four on the Richter scale hit Kazakhstan on 2 August, but no casualties or major damage were reported. Its epicentre was some 430 km north of the nation's commercial capital, Almaty, and 25 km east of Lake Balkhash.
AFGHANISTAN: UN says 15 killed in bomb blast
Fifteen people were killed when a bomb explosion ripped through a bus in the southern Afghan province of Helmand on 13 August, according to a UN official. The incident is the latest in a series of such incidents in the country. "Fifteen people - eight men, six boys and a woman - were killed as a result of a bomb explosion in a bus in Manja village in the Nad-e Ali District of Helmand Province, just 10 kilometres from the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah," David Singh, a media relations officer of the United Nations Assistant Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), told IRIN in the capital, Kabul.
PAKISTAN: Oil spill threatens marine life, coastal ecosystems
Spillage from an oil tanker grounded just off the coast near the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi, has already caused catastrophic damage to marine and plant life, the effects of which could linger on for years with devastating results, according to a top environmentalist. "It is an ecological, environmental and economic disaster," Tahir Qureshi, the head of the coastal ecosystems unit at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, told IRIN from Karachi on 15 August.
TAJIKISTAN: Iodine deficiency remains problematic
Goitre caused by iodine deficiency amongst women and children remains highly prevalent in the impoverished Central Asian nation of Tajikistan. The deficiency induces swelling of the thyroid gland in the neck, leading to goitre. In some regions it was estimated that close to 60 percent of children were suffering from goitre.
AFGHANISTAN: Poor security frustrating aid and development work
The international and national aid community in Afghanistan is concerned over the phenomenon of increasing incidents, in the context of the bombing of the United Nations office in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. Such incidents had included security breaches affecting aid workers, several of whom had been killed in a recent upsurge in violence in Afghanistan, an official said on Friday. "We have all been shocked by the Baghdad bombing of the UN headquarters and the tragic loss of so many innocent and dedicated staff," Paul Barker, the country director for CARE International's Afghanistan operations, told IRIN from the capital, Kabul on 18 August.
AFGHANISTAN: Cereal crop largest in two decades
Afghanistan's cereal crop for 2003 will be the largest in two decades, according to The Crop and Food Supply Assessment Mission carried out by the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP). Yet many people will remain reliant on humanitarian assistance, according to a joint report by the FAO and WFP found. "In spite of relatively wide use of improved varieties [of seeds] and fertilisers, the majority of Afghan farmers are far from reaching self-sufficiency in food production and labour opportunities that could permit access to food," Antonio di Leonardo, the FAO emergency coordinator, told IRIN from the capital, Kabul, on 21 August.
TAJIKISTAN: Huge medical aid consignment
On 20 August, Washington delivered US $16 million worth of medical supplies to Tajikistan, thereby launching the largest-ever humanitarian aid project for the country. A military aircraft brought antibiotics, vaccines and other medicines to the capital, Dushanbe, to be distributed to hospitals around the country. Tajikistan will get medicines and medical equipment worth a total of US $27 million by early 2004.
IRAN: Afghan repatriation clears the 500,000 mark
Voluntary repatriations of thousands of Afghan refugees are continuing, with the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Iran reporting that over a half a million had left that country. "The repatriation programme to Afghanistan from Iran is working well," a UNHCR spokeswoman, Marie-Helene Verney, told IRIN from the capital, Tehran on 26 August. Numbers were smaller than last year, but that was to be expected considering the vast number of repatriations earlier on, she said.
PAKISTAN: New study shows half the population lacks safe water
Only 56 percent of the total population of Pakistan has access to safe drinking water, according to a study, entitled "Water, A Vital Source of Life", published by the United Nations System in Pakistan, and launched in the capital, Islamabad, on 28 August. "This is a significant contribution towards mass awareness programmes in the area of water management. The articles regarding provincial water situations give deep insight into the local issues," Maj (retd) Tahir Iqbal, the environment minister, said at the launch.
PAKISTAN: People return to relief camps as monsoon hits Sindh again
Overnight rains in rural Sindh have forced tens of people back into the relief camps set up after heavy rains caused huge floods last month, leaving over a million people stranded or homeless in the southern Pakistani province at the end of August. "If the rain is very severe, it will cause problems for the Sindh government. We will have to reorganise ourselves, and our strategy will have to be revised," Salahuddin Haider, the provincial government's information adviser, told IRIN from Karachi.
