Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 17:22:47 +0300 (BEAUT)
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Subject: AFGHANISTAN:  WFP warns of one million facing starvation   [2001027]
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AFGHANISTAN: WFP warns of one million facing starvation 

ISLAMABAD, 27 October (IRIN) - As many as one million Afghans face
starvation if the World Food Programme (WFP) is forced to shut down its
emergency operation in Afghanistan, as is threatened by a funding
shortfall, the agency told IRIN on Friday. 

"We will definitely see famine deaths, possibly as many as 500,000 to one
million, unless resource needs are met," WFP Programme Officer for
Afghanistan, Pippa Bradford, told IRIN.

In an urgent plea for funding, WFP Country Director for Afghanistan Gerard
van Dijk said that 115,000 mt - the equivalent of about $54 million in
funding - was needed to continue feeding up to three million people until
the next harvest in May.

Despite some recent donations, WFP's resources were quickly draining due
to an acceleration of food deliveries to counter Afghanistan's worst
drought in decades, he told a press conference in the Pakistani capital
Islamabad. 

"We will be running out of food in February. If we do not receive new
pledges this month, we will have to cut down or stop our operations in
Afghanistan at a time when Afghans will be in the midst of the pre-harvest
'hungry season'," van Dijk added. 

WFP estimated that up to 12 million Afghans were affected by the drought,
with three to four million of those "severely affected". So far this year,
the agency had distributed 110,000 mt of food to 2.3 million Afghans,
which was almost double almost double the volume of the same period last
year. The low level of precipitation had destroyed almost all rain-fed
crops and decimated livestock, it said.

Afghanistan needed about 4.1 million mt of cereals a year to feed its
people, but faced a cereal deficit of more than 50 percent this coming
year, van Dijk said. The next harvest from rain-fed areas was due in May
2000 but, if the rain failed again, "we could see a widespread famine
unless adequate preventative steps are taken in time," he added. 

Bradford told IRIN that the worst-hit areas, in which there had been
drought-related deaths, were in the north part of the Central Highlands. 
Camps for displaced people in the western city of Herat were also sorely
affected, she said. 

About 85 percent of the Afghan population of 21.9 million people are
directly dependent on agriculture and, with their crops ruined by the
drought, millions of people have had to sell their livestock - their only
form of income - to pay for food.

Tens of thousands of Afghans have migrated to already over-taxed urban
centres and, with the deteriorating conditions faced by households, many
more people would be forced to move in order to survive, van Dijk told
IRIN.  "This is what we are trying to avoid: large-scale migration to
urban areas.  For this, we need massive food aid." 

[ENDS]

[IRIN-Asia: Tel: +254 2 622147 Fax: +254 2 622129 e-mail:
irin-cea@ocha.unon.org ]


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