Top UN official calls for immediate action

Following his three-day visit to assess the growing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, the UN's new Emergency Relief Coordinator, Kenzo Oshima, told IRIN that he was shocked by the "unbelievable misery" that faced many Afghans and called for the international community to mount an effective response to address their acute suffering. "What I see here is a crisis which is crying out for massive international assistance. Unless something is done immediately, the situation may develop into a major humanitarian catastrophe. I think it would be wise for the international community to act before it is too late and to act in a prompt and in a massive way," he told journalists in Herat, western Afghanistan, on Thursday, after visiting the dust-ridden camp of Maslakh, home to 40,000 Afghan displaced. At the camp, Oshima spoke to several families who had abandoned their homes in Central Afghanistan. Although 17 km from the town of Herat, and living in cramped and cold conditions, they were at least able to receive assistance from the local authorities and international relief agencies. According to Oshima, the displacement of over 500,000 people during winter was evidence enough that the social coping mechanisms for many Afghans had been utterly exhausted. The displaced families in Herat had been worn down by conflict, drought, deprived of livehoods and forced to live in abject poverty. In spite of this, more people continued to arrive at the camp. According to UNHCR, a further 1,000 people per day were crossing into neighbouring Iran. Oshima said that the situation in the displaced camps had improved since two weeks ago when over 150 people, mainly women and children had died from cold. But there was a need for increased assistance. Relief workers in Herat expressed particular concern for families that remained in rural areas. WFP coordinator Denise Brown told IRIN that UN and NGO agencies were struggling to access families in rural highland areas in an effort to discourage further mass exodus to Herat and beyond. Relief workers from the Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugees (DACAAR) said that families in the displaced camps were relatively lucky. Recent assessments had encountered families who had run out of reserves or fallen ill and were installed in makeshift tents near rural district centres. According to UN officials, the accumulated effect of partial funding of assistance, the neglect of the agricultural sector and the enforced ban on opium poppy cultivation, which had left many farmers destitute, had significantly contributed to the crisis. However, Oshima said that "the debilitating civil war is causing untold suffering and is the real cause of hardship. Unless fighting stops it could lead to another wave of internally displaced and refugees". In meetings with senior Taliban representatives in Kabul and Herat, Oshima said he had urged them to divert resources for fighting to help the Afghan people. The Taliban authorities promised to do everything on their part to cooperate with the UN in order to improve the situation. In a meeting on Wednesday in Faizabad, Badakhshan province, ousted President Rabbani told Oshima that the international community must act now if it wanted to avert a full-scale humanitarian catastrophe. Oshima said that although donors had been generous in the past, he detected a sense of fatigue among them. Having funded humanitarian programmes for years, many donor governments had become weary as the warring factions continued to channel resources into the conflict and relied on international assistance for the Afghan population. "It is difficult to convince donors to move given that fighting continues but I hope that my visit will raise awareness of the gravity of the problem. I will be talking to the donor community and hope that it comes forward with more generous assistance to help mitigate the misery of these people," he said. However he added that "no amount of assistance was going to be enough to prevent the current crisis but exceptional steps were required now to prevent the situation from worsening."