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This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
Humanitarian Emergency Afghan Radio
HEAR Bulletin No. 11
Tuesday 01 January 2002
[News stories read by Voices A and voice B in turn]
- UNHCR has announced it has now opened an office in Bamiyan. The new office will occupy itself with trying to address the needs of displaced people in the central provinces of the country.
This means that at the start of year 2002, UNHCR now has 20 international staff and 90 Afghan staff in the country. UNHCR offices are currently located in Kabul, Herat, Mazar and Bamiyan.
There are additional international staff waiting in Pakistan to go to Jalalabad and Kandahar. They are waiting for the UN security assessment mission to give approval for them to go to those two cities.
- The new year will also see the start of organised returns of displaced people to the Shomali plains. 200 families are scheduled to leave the Panjshir Valley and return to their homes in Bagram district. It is hoped that this will be the start of a program of returns assisted by UNHCR and other agencies on a daily basis.
About 200,000 people have fled from fighting in the Shomali Plains in the last three to four years.
- The number of people returning from Pakistan through the Torkham and Chaman crossing points has now stopped the rapid increase reported last week. Daily numbers are now down from a high of nearly 4,000 per day last week, and are now at about half this level. The number varies quite widely each day, and there are no clear reasons for this.
The early very high numbers occurred immediately after the installation of the new interim government in Kabul on 22nd December.
However, even the new lower rates of two to three thousand people returning each day still represent a lot of people. These returns are entirely spontaneous; there is no assistance package, and these people are returning entirely by their own arrangements.
Many more people are not returning independently but are asking UNHCR to organise repatriation assistance for them. The people who seem most keen to return now are urban Afghans or those with professional qualifications, such as doctors, nurse, teachers or engineers, and also business people.
- The disease measles has appeared in three refugee camps in Baluchistan. A total of 58 cases have been reported, in the three refugee villages of Kili Faizo, Roghani and Landi Karez.
No-one is reported to have died from the outbreak, but some patients who developed complications have been taken to hospital in Chaman.
Immunisation against measles is a routine precaution in refugee camps, and this has been done. However it can sometimes happen that a small number of people already have the disease before they are immunised. There is an interval of several days between getting infected with the measles germ and getting the first symptoms.
All children in the camps have been vaccinated, and a spokesperson for MSF said: "The situation is under control and preventive measures will stop measles from spreading."
Measles mainly affects children, which is why only children are routinely vaccinated against it. Measles itself is not a fatal disease. However, it can cause serious complications in children who are malnourished or suffering from other illnesses - as is often the case with children who are newly arrived inn refugee villages, sometimes after long journeys or long periods of drought and hunger.
It is the combination of all these factors that makes measles a serious problem in a refugee village. Also the crowded conditions in a new refugee camp enable the measles germs - like other diseases - to spread much more quickly.
Vaccination is one important preventive measure. In addition, hygiene and good sanitation are extremely important in preventing the spread of diseases in refugee and displaced person camps. Good hygiene and sanitation depend on the active cooperation and participation of all the people living in these camps.
- The Japanese NGO called Association for Aid and Relief, or AAR, announced on Friday details of its new activities in Afghanistan.
One program will be aimed at helping the displaced people now living on the islands or sandbanks of the Pyanj river that lies between Afghanistan and Tajikistan. AAR aid worker Hiroko Niimura visited the area and wrote in his report:
"Stranded on these sandbanks are a hundred thousand (10,000) people who have fled their homes in Kunduz province and other parts of northern Afghanistan." He continued: " Stability is returning to their homeland…….. but with the threat of landmines and their homes destroyed, they have no choice but to remain where they are at least until the spring."
Malnutrition is a serious problem here, as in so many places in Afghanistan, and especially among babies and small children. At first, AAR considered distributing powdered milk as food for babies. But they quickly realised that this would only make matters worse, because powdered milk is extremely dangerous for babies if it is not mixed with clean boiled water, in clean containers. Since this was not available, and since breast-feeding is anyway always preferable, AAR decided to focus their efforts on helping enable mothers to breast-feed their babies.
Hiroko Niimura again: "And if the mother is to breast-feed her baby, it is her health which must be taken care of first. So we decided to supply fruit and vegetables which would serve as sources of vitamins."
AAR is now working in collaboration with the French NGO ACTED and the British NGO MERLIN, to start the distribution of fruit and vegetables among the displaced people on the islands and sandbanks.
- AAR is also distributing iodised salt. This is salt which has small amounts of iodine added to it. Iodine is found naturally in foods, but in some mountainous areas there is no iodine in the soil - or not enough of it - and so a lack of iodine in the food.
Lack of iodine in food leads to various health problems. The most common is goitre (a big swelling in the neck). It can also cause poor eyesight, hearing problems, and learning difficulties or mental retardation. These problems often occur more frequently than normal in areas where there is a lack of iodine in the food.
Distribution of iodised salt is a simple and effective way of making sure that everyone in the community gets some iodine in their diet, because salt is used in cooking.
- Other agencies also working with the people stranded on the flood plains of the River Pyanj include UNHCR, who have provided tents for schools, and UNICEF and Save the Children (UK) who are organising education activities in the tents. In addition the American Red Cross has paid for some relief supplies which UNICEF has distributed.
- And a final piece of good news: Herat has received plenty of rain - people say it is more than usual in normal years.
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Last Updated on: December 30, 2008 |
