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U.N. to Tackle Afghan "Catastrophe"
NEW YORK, NOV 7 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The United Nations has agreed to convene an international conference on aid to Afghanistan, French President Jacques Chirac said, news agencies reported.
The conference, intending to avert what Chirac called a "humanitarian catastrophe", would focus on the logistics of getting aid to Afghanistan, BBC's online service reported.
"It is not just refugees but all the Afghan people who are in a precarious situation. And winter is about to start," Chirac said.
President Chirac, speaking at U.N. headquarters in New York, insisted that money was not the problem - what was needed was organization and drive.
But Peter Kessler of the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) said the Taliban and the collapse of law and order in Afghanistan were the main obstacles to humanitarian efforts, BBC reported.
He said that if the Taliban would co-operate with the U.N. by returning stolen vehicles and allowing staff still inside the country to carry out their work, much aid could still be distributed.
The U.N. conference, initiated by Chirac, would bring together donor countries, representatives from Afghanistan's neighbors, and non-governmental organizations.
Chirac said he had also suggested that a senior official be appointed to co-ordinate the humanitarian effort.
The U.N. estimates that around 5 million people in Afghanistan are in need of immediate humanitarian assistance; 100,000 children may die this winter if aid does not get to them soon.
Tens of thousands of refugees are trying to get into neighboring countries who have closed their borders.
Meanwhile, aid workers warn that conditions at an Afghan refugee camp on the border with Iran are so bad that people could start dying unless things improve.
The British-based agency, Christian Aid, which has assessed two camps run by the Iranian Red Crescent in Taleban-controlled areas, says it is extremely worried about the 1,500 refugees who have no shelter, virtually no medical care, limited food and poor sanitation, BBC reported.
Some refugees have walked hundreds of kilometers and are traumatized by the deaths of friends and family in the civil war and U.S. bombing.
Iran - like many of Afghanistan's other neighbors - has refused to open its borders to Afghan refugees fleeing U.S. bombing raids.
It prefers to care for them in camps a few kilometers inside Afghanistan.
Christian Aid visited two camps, Makaki and Mile 46, and was particularly concerned about conditions at Makaki.
The camp houses some 6,500 refugees and about 5,000 are living in tents.
But Christian Aid says about 1,500 have no shelter at all and are sleeping on the outskirts of the camp.
John Davison, of the assessment team, says some refugees are trying to build windbreaks from twigs in an effort to find shelter from dust storms.
"You have got people there who are very traumatized anyway," he said.
"There are people who have come from as far away as Mazar-e-Sharif which is 750km away. Some of them have walked a lot of that way and they are not in great shape.
"If you add to that inadequate food supplies and plummeting temperatures you have a distinct recipe for people dying during the night."
Iranian authorities insist that Makaki is full and appear to have no plans to set up more tents, BBC reported.
The Iranian Red Crescent has been talking about putting two new camps elsewhere in the area.
Christian Aid says people are still arriving in Makaki, but adds there have also been reports that the Taliban may be holding refugees back from the area until new facilities are available.
Director General of Khorasan Province Red Cross department, Younes Ani, on a recent visit to refugee camps on the outskirts of Herat, described their sanitary, medical, and nutritional situation as critical, the Official Iranian News Agency (IRNA) reported.
Ani said Tuesday, "Over 500,000 Afghan refugees from various provinces of Afghanistan including Badghis, Farah and Ghor who were hit by drought are currently housed at the camps set up around Afghanistan," IRNA reported.
Heading a Red Cross Relief group commissioned to Herat, he said malnutrition, depression, shortage of water supply as well as lack of sanitary and medical facilities have created disastrous situations at the camps.
Ani added, "There are only two clinics set up around the city of Herat for the seven refugee camps which are constructed by the aid workers of international assemblies."
He noted that considering the approaching winter and the unfavorable conditions of the relief tents and the earthen shelters at the camps, the risk of infection with various diseases is on the rise.
He referred to the negligence of international assemblies in providing relief aid and supplies as some of the factors accounting for the difficulties observed at the camps.
He added that currently only one bag of flour is distributed among the refugees every month (or every month and a half) - irregularly and without any proper supervision, IRNA reported.
Ani recalled that the absence of a single administration in dispatching relief aid accounts for the waste of the supplies provided by international assemblies.
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