EIU predicts acute food shortages

A report from the London-based Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has forecast that Afghanistan, as a result of the drought last year, will suffer from acute food shortages in 2001, followed by a disastrous harvest and scarcity of seed for the next planting season. Closed borders, bombed roads and international isolation will complicate the delivery of food aid.

Many farmers will face financial ruin as a result of the drought and a half-hearted crackdown on drug production. The country’s 22 million people are forced to live under some of the most draconian, and bizarre, laws in the world, it said, citing how a Pakistani football team recently had their heads shaved for wearing shorts and football has since been forbidden. Women are banned from work or schools and widows are forced to beg.

The country is friendless due to its links with Osama bin Laden and the alleged hosting of terrorist camps, it said. The EIU predicts that in 2001 large numbers of people will die through disease, starvation, or war and many more will leave. “The fact that the misery is so largely of its own making is an added qualification for bottom prize”, the report said.