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Food Crisis Threatening Afghans With Mass Starvation: UN Report
The deepening food crisis in Afghanistan is threatening the country's people with looming mass starvation, according a special report released here Thursday at the U.N. headquarters.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned in its report that the food supply situation in countries bordering Afghanistan is also seriously undermined by a prolonged dry spell.
"This year's food production in Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan has suffered a significant reduction due to serious drought," the report said, adding that in the past, millions of Afghans have met part of their food needs with supplies from those states.
While the majority of Afghans are facing severe food supply difficulties, some 7.5 million most affected people are in desperate need of food aid to survive, it said.
FAO plans to deliver 52,000 tons of food aid per month to feed the most vulnerable people, including 1.5 million refugees and 6 million resident Afghans.
The current adverse situation coincides with the planting season for wheat, which accounts for 80 percent of the country's total cereal production, it said.
"With the population largely on the move, serious shortages of inputs and a disruption of farming activities by military operations, cereal production in 2001 to meet consumption needs during 2001/02 is set to decline significantly," FAO said.
The report underscored that the changed situation had exacerbated Afghanistan's long-standing food insecurity, noting that even before the events of September 11, Afghanistan was gripped by a grave food crisis following three consecutive years of drought and intensifying economic problems due to continuing civil conflict.
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