U.S. agencies fight Afghan starvation, try to deliver help before brutal winter

By BARRY SCHWEID
AP Diplomatic Writer

WASHINGTON – Even though U.S. officials say the war on terrorism has a long way to go, aid workers say they are meeting their goals of feeding the Afghan people.

"I didn't think we could do it, but we've done it," Andrew S. Natsios, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said Monday.

The relief effort is providing the people of Afghanistan with 1,800 tons of food a day. Natsios said the war only exacerbated the woes of a country beset by famine and drought.

Many of Afghanistan's hungry people soon will be battered by cold and snow.

"We're racing against time to get food in," Natsios said at a State Department news conference. "Winter is upon us."

Natsios estimated that 1.5 million of the more than 20 million Afghans are on the brink of starvation.

The only bridge connecting Afghanistan with Uzbekistan, to the north, reopened Sunday for the first time since 1997, and the first train carrying much-needed humanitarian aid for Afghanistan crossed over.

Michael McKinley, a senior official in the department's refugees bureau, said up to 3 million people could be reached by trucks and other vehicles carrying food across the bridge. Vehicles are scarce, but Natsios said a second crossing will be ready soon.

Last month, in a far less optimistic assessment, the U.N. Children's Fund estimated that as many as 100,000 Afghan children could die of cold, disease and hunger within weeks if vital aid did not reach them.

"Winter is approaching fast and we need to move in emergency supplies even quicker in order to help the most vulnerable, the Afghan children and women, to survive these very cold conditions," said Thomas McDermott, UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

Diseases spreading through refugee camps in western Afghanistan, near Iran, have claimed the lives of hundreds of children, the organization said.

The United States is committed to providing $320 million in food aid. About $140 million has been spent.

Desperate people in Afghanistan have sold their animals, destroyed their homes for timber and sold their land, Natsios said. "They have reached the end of their tether."

There are villages, he said, without any men. They have gone off to look for work, some to neighboring countries.

On Monday, the aid agency announced it had approved a $3.5 million grant to CARE for water, sanitation, agriculture and shelter. Farming facilities for 100,000 people in Ghazni and Wardak provinces will be rebuilt.

Nearly 5,000 homes in Kabul will be rebuilt and more than 42,000 people in the capital will get safe drinking water. The shelter program is designed to provide food and short-term jobs for about 75,000 people in Kabul, Kandahar, Farah, Nangahar and Laghman.

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On the Net:

U.S. Agency for International Development: www.usaid.gov/about/afghanistan

AP-WS-12-10-01 1729EST