UN-MSF report on malnutrition “alarming”

The United Nations Office of the Coordinator for Afghanistan on Wednesday issued a statement calling the results of a new study from the NGO Medecins sans Frontieres-Belgium (MSF) on malnutrition and mortality rates among young children in the country “alarming”. “We are especially concerned about this report in so far as it was done in areas we have identified as crisis areas,” spokesperson for the Office of the Coordinator for Afghanistan, Stephanie Bunker told IRIN on Thursday. “It demonstrates to us that children are dying every month and given the present situation, the situation looks set only to worsen.” According to the MSF report, the mortality rate among children under five is 5.2 per 10,000 per day or in other words, 13 deaths out of 697 children under-five in 36 days. The survey was conducted in only eight of 28 villages and may not completely represent conditions in more remote and inaccessible villages of the district. However, the areas surveyed do represent two out of five districts in Afghanistan’s northern Faryab Province declared as drought crisis areas. “This situation is extremely worrying,” MSF head of mission Stephan Goetghebuer in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif told IRIN on Thursday. “We are still at the beginning of winter and the worst weather is yet to come - long-term prospects for these people is bleak.” Asked how people were coping, he confirmed that food was becoming particularly scarce and people had taken to eating roots - an item that was also fast depleting in the local markets. “The selling of daughters for marriage purposes in Afghanistan has always been a tradition, however, given the current economic situation, we are seeing a lot of much younger girls being sold off,” he added. Meanwhile, Wednesday’s statement by the UN said the regional task force on displaced persons (IDPs) is making fresh attempts to develop a better understanding of the situation of those families recently displaced due to conflict in the northern Kunduz and Baglan provinces. Following joint assessments that began on 1 January, WFP food will be distributed in February to all IDPs displaced by conflict in these two provinces. Accordingly, each family of the 7,821 in need (over 45,000 people) will receive a one month supply of 50 kilos of wheat. The displaced in Kunduz province included those in Khanabad, Aliabad, Kunduz City, and Imam Saheb, while those in Baglan province included Charshanbe Tepe, Old Baglan, New Baglan, Pulikhumri, Doshi, and Dhand-i-Ghauri, the statement said. The situation in northern Afghanistan has been particularly compounded by the problems of drought and conflict. According to the UN announcement, in comparison to 1999 figures, the wheat crop dropped by 65 percent in rain fed areas and 30 percent in irrigated areas in the year 2000. In addition, livestock herd size decreased by 70 to 80 percent by the end of the second quarter of 2000. The issue of livestock is particularly critical as many impoverished families sell off their last remaining herd in an effort to maintain “bare minimum survival”. According to Bunker: “What we are seeing now are people coming into Herat who have left their homes in Faryab Province. In addition to the MSF data, this is another indicator of the severity of the situation in the hardest hit districts of the province”. With weather conditions fast deteriorating and harvest prospects becoming bleaker than ever due to the worst drought to hit the country in 30 years, Goetghebuer remarked: “It is the duty of the humanitarian community to follow the Afghan situation closely.”