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Aid
Since 7 October, when the US began its bombing campaign in Afghanistan, conditions within the country have become worse than ever.
Even before the present crisis, an estimated 2 million Afghan refugees were already living in Pakistan and a further 1.8 million were thought to be in Iran. Both borders are now closed, though it is thought that 100-110,000 people have since managed to enter Pakistan.
A far greater problem has been displacement within Afghanistan. Since the bombing started, an estimated 75% of the populations of the main cities has now fled to the villages, along with many who had returned – voluntarily and otherwise – from the refugee camps in Pakistan. After three years of drought and the resulting poor harvests (around 50% of normal, and much less in some regions), villagers could barely feed themselves before the influx of city-dwellers.
The logistics of getting food to remote areas would always have been extremely difficult, but now truck drivers are unwilling to enter Afghanistan for fear, among other problems, of the bombing and increased lawlessness.
Food aid is supplied by the United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) and distributed by non-governmental organisations (NGOs), such as UNICEF and Oxfam within Afghanistan. As the WFP has found it impossible to deliver enough food into the country, some NGOs are seeking alternative ways of doing so.
Oxfam estimates that 2.5 million people in Afghanistan will run out of food completely between now and December. According to the UN, 5.5 million were already at least partially dependent on food aid before the current crisis began, and that number could rise to over 7 million. Afghan winters are cruel and millions could starve without immediate aid. NGOs have urged a halt in the bombing in order to get food aid to the population.
The programme of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Afghanistan, which also covers work in hospitals and prison visiting, recently became a victim of the US bombing, when its Kabul warehouses were hit.
Refugees
Conditions in the Pakistani camps are desperate. Many residents are unable to qualify for food aid and most survive by working outside the camps, sharing their meagre earnings with those who cannot work. So it is not surprising that many Afghans are starting to travel further afield. Latest Home Office figures show over 600 Afghans seeking asylum each month, constituting one of the largest groups doing so.
Figures following the beginning of the current crisis are not yet available, but numbers are expected to rise. Poorer refugees are likely to attempt to travel overland through the former Soviet Union. The slow journey will be particularly hard in winter.
Opposition
Afghan political divisions have been largely along ethnic lines. The Taliban draw support from the majority Pashtun people, while opposition is found among non-Pashtuns. Anti-Taliban forces within Afghanistan consist chiefly of the Northern Alliance – a coalition centred on the north-east of the country, which now enjoys US support, but whose own human rights record has been heavily criticised.
The Northern Alliance was losing ground to the Taliban until it started to receive US backing. Among its most serious recent setbacks was the assassination of Ahmad Shah Massoud, days before the attacks on the US. A former Mujahideen leader, allied with a Shi'a group, Hizb-e-Wahadat, he was one of the Alliance's most important personalities. The Taliban are believed to have been responsible for his death.
Until the 11 September bombings, resistance to the Taliban was backed largely by Russia, Iran and Tajikistan, but the Alliance now draws support from the US. Pakistan’s government, which formerly lent a certain amount of support to the Taliban, now backs the United States – but faces vociferous opposition from among its own population.
The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), the group that Saira Shah contacted in Afghanistan, is a small organisation but, Saira says, one that 'punches above its weight'. It has a high media profile and is particularly loathed by the Taliban. RAWA operates in Kabul, in great secrecy and supports neither the Taliban nor the Northern Alliance, which it sees as similarly fundamentalist and misogynist in nature. While describing the events of 11 September as 'inhuman' its view of the bombing is that, by driving the poor into the desert and away from sources of food, 'an unprecedented disaster is in the making'. RAWA states in its website that it seeks a government 'based on democratic values [that] should ensure freedom of thought, religion and political expression while safeguarding women's rights'.
How you can help
Send money (a much more efficient form of help than anything in kind) to the United Nations Afghanistan Emergency Trust Fund (AETF).
Other NGOs, such as Oxfam, also have Afghan emergency appeals, and details of their work can be found on their websites.
Contribute to the fund set up by Jemima Khan, wife of Imran Khan (the former Pakistani international cricketer) for the people of the refugee camps in Pakistan.
If you want to help change official attitudes to asylum-seekers, you can write to your MP and to Home Secretary David Blunkett, stressing the need to treat Afghans and others fleeing persecution with more sympathy.
Those opposing the bombing campaign can find out about events related to this from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) who have a Diary of Events on their website.
How hidden cameras were used to film inside Afghanistan.
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