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American Morning

America's New War: Humanitarian Crisis for Afghanistan

Aired September 25, 2001 - 10:20   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Pakistan, which borders Afghanistan, could play a key role in a U.S. military response to the terrorist attacks.

CNN's Christiane Amanpour is in Islamabad, Pakistan, and joins us with the very latest on the diplomatic front.

Hi, Christiane.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Paula, the European Union delegation is here in support of United States efforts to build up the coalition. They have come to Pakistan, and they have gone on to Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Syria, to rally the Arab and Islamic countries to this coalition, to assure them that this not an attack or campaign against Islam; it is, rather, a campaign against terror in which all nations are enjoined to do battle.

They are also saying that they are going to send a very strong message to these countries that any of their financial institutions that have been used to funnel money or in any way support, aide, or abet terrorism needs to be closed down and, basically, stopped.

They are carrying these messages in support of U.S. efforts to the Islamic and Arab world. They are also giving Pakistan the opportunity to restart bilateral relations and some economic relations and trading relations with the European Union.

Now, there is also rather a lot of concern about the humanitarian situation inside Afghanistan, the UN here, various agencies, saying there is only about a week's left of food left for some 2 million people inside Afghanistan who depend entirely on international aid and the UN workers there. All their staff have been recalled because of the security situation, and even the local staff have basically shut down because they are concerned for their security as the Taliban have basically raided their offices and closed down their means of communication and support with their headquarters here in Pakistan.

So a little bit of a troubling situation there in terms of the humanitarian situation, Paula.

ZAHN: How many people are we talking about that are caught in the middle of this waiting game?

AMANPOUR: Well, there are two situations here. One, several thousand people who are trying to get across the border to Pakistan and not having a huge amount of success. Only a trickle of people are allowed over.

But the other is that even before this crisis, there was prefamine conditions because for several years there has been a terrible drought. There is not enough food. The entire food aid that goes in is from the international community. And there was only about one to two weeks left in there when this crisis began. For example, UNICEF, the UN children's fund, is particularly concerned about the women and children, who are the most dependent and the most at risk. They are saying that even before this crisis, even in the best of times in Afghanistan, one in four children dies before the age of 5, and every 15 minutes, a mother dies in childbirth from entirely preventable causes that they are not able to address at this time.

ZAHN: So is there an expectation that relief workers will be able to pick up the pace of their work, or are you expecting a lot of women and children to die here?

AMANPOUR: That's the question that we've asked and they are trying to monitor. As I say, their communications are being cut with their local staff there. What they are saying is that because of the situation, firstly, they cannot take stuff into Afghanistan right now. So what they want to do is go into various locations around the Pakistan border, along the Iran border, which also neighbors Afghanistan and the Turkmenistan border, which also is abutting Afghanistan, and try to preposition supplies -- food, oral rehydration salts, blankets, tents, all sorts of emergency supplies -- that the moment they can, they can be able to take that in. But they are not sure when they will be able to do that. So they are quite concerned.

ZAHN: Christiane Amanpour, thanks so much for that report. We will continue to check in with you throughout the morning.

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