WFP team investigating famine reports

The World Food Programme (WFP), in collaboration with several local NGOs, on Sunday sent a team to northeastern Afghanistan to assess the accuracy of reports of widespread deaths due to famine, officials told IRIN. The mission follows claims by the opposition Northern Alliance on Thursday that some 1,000 famine-related deaths had occurred in northeastern Badakhshan. "We are taking these reports very seriously but we are rather surprised as we haven't seen any signs or indicators of massive hunger-related deaths," WFP spokesman Khaled Mansour told IRIN on Monday. "Just a week ago, we were in the Yaftal district of Badakhshan, one of the areas that was cited in the announcement. WFP delivered 125 mt of food then and we saw no indications of problems [on that scale]," he added. The new assessment team, which includes nutritionists and logistics experts, will spend about a week examining the situation on the ground to determine the validity of the Northern Alliance's reports and the action that needs to be taken, if any. The mission is expected to last one week but some districts of concern will take longer than others to assess given difficult access conditions, Mansour told IRIN. Mountainous Badakhshan is the only province under the control of opposition Northern Alliance commander Ahmad Shah Masood, the former Afghan defence minister who has been battling the Taliban since 1995. The Taliban currently controls an estimated 95 percent of Afghan territory. In an announcement on Thursday, Masood spokesman Mohammad Habeel said the famine had struck several districts in Badakhshan province, including Shahr-e-Bozurg, Yaftal, Ragh and Darwaz. Appealing for more international assistance, Habeel said thousands of people were on the move in search of food with many heading to the Takhar provincial centre of Taloqan on their way to Pakistan. "Most of them, children and elderly, are so weak that they will perish while braving the arduous journey," he added. One aid worker who declined to be identified, told IRIN on Monday that the claims may be exaggerated. "These figures and such statements could be politically motivated," the source added. "The reports have been received but have yet to be verified," said Stephanie Bunker, spokesperson for the office of the UN coordinator for Afghanistan. "Although people have died, it is difficult to distinguish these statistics from normal mortalities which you have at any given time and place in the world," she added. WFP last week launched an appeal for a US $76 million emergency operation to save people from starvation in Afghanistan. "There have been three consecutive years of severe drought in Afghanistan and we can see that millions of people are at real risk of starving," WFP representative for Afghanistan Gerard Van Dijk said in a statement.