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8 October 2001 Afghan Red Crescent is maintaining health services to the population despite the aerial bombardments and donors are being urged to support the Red Cross Red Crescent appeal for up to 500,000 refugees who might flee to neighbouring countries as a result of the hostilities. Contact today with the Afghan Red Crescent Society in Kabul confirmed that work is continuing as normal in their 48 health clinics countrywide, including the ten which are running in the capital, despite the aerial bombardments. "We are doing everything we can to make sure that help is there not only for refugees fleeing Afghanistan, but for those who remain behind. The support our programmes provide there is critical and we need to ensure that help will continue," said Satoshi Sugai, programme co-ordinator. A major concern now is that the clinics are re-supplied with medicaments before winter sets in and plans are in place to fly in 500 customised health kits to Peshawar for onward transport into Kabul. Last year alone there were some 1.2 million services provided at the clinics which are a vital resource in a country which has the lowest child survival rate in the world together with the second highest maternal mortality rate. While significant quantities of relief materials are now arriving in the region as the Red Cross Red Crescent build-up continues for a refugee exodus into neighbouring countries there is also a need for money to support the necessary infrastructure and local purchases such as a stock of 5,000 family size winter tents in Iran for shipment to Pakistan. "Although donors have responded generously with material aid, we need more cash in order for us to get aid to people when they need it most. Now that air strikes have begun on Afghanistan, there is an urgent need for action - action that will ensure people are protected adequately from the bitter winter that is approaching," said Jean Ayoub, operations director at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. The International Federation is appealing for 40 million Swiss francs for a relief programme to provide shelter, food, health care and clean water and sanitation to Afghan refugees as well as health care for those who stay behind. In Pakistan, the relief pipeline is beginning to flow in earnest. In addition to 35 tons of relief materials which arrived last Thursday from the Spanish Red Cross, a major consignment of water and sanitation equipment arrived by air from the Austrian Red Cross over the weekend. Emergency Health Kits which can meet the needs of 20,000 people over three months from are expected from the Norwegian Red Cross in the next few days and a German Red Cross consignment will include 10,000 blankets and 900 tents. The Pakistan Red Crescent Society is readying itself to play a major role as, and when, refugee camps start to receive displaced people from Afghanistan. Similarly, the Iran Red Crescent will be the main partner for the Federation, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the UN agencies involved in the relief effort along Afghanistan's western border. Preparedness measures are also going on across the central Asian republics with a strong emphasis in the last week or so on camp management training in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The Tadjikistan Red Crescent is similarly gearing up while also contending with the imminent commencement of a drought relief operation. |
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