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American Morning
Increasing Evidence Afghanistan is Facing a Humanitarian Disaster
Aired December 04, 2001 - 08:20 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: Even as the military campaign zeros in on the last major Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, there is increasing evidence that Afghanistan is facing a humanitarian disaster. The war there is compounding problems for hospitals, and doctors already struggling to care for the sick and wounded.
CNN's Brent Sadler is in the eastern city of Jalalabad with a look at the humanitarian crisis -- Brent.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jalalabad's one and only hospital copes with casualties of war. Medical staff complain that poor facilities make it difficult for them to treat the sick, as well as the wounded. Even before the Taliban was driven from this city nearly three weeks ago, health care dwindled as humanitarian organizations pulled out.
Afghan staff of a United Nations sponsored group called OMAR, the Organization for Mine Clearance and Afghan Rehabilitation, continue to work. A small-scale operation only allowed to run outside the city.
So, Dr. Qaseem Qayoumi takes OMAR's ambulance into Nangarhar Province, caring for remote communities, feeling the effects of war.
"Infectious diseases, like typhoid, pneumonia and bronchitis," says Dr. Qayoumi, "are rising -- other illnesses too."
DR. QASEEM QAYOUMI, OMOR HEALTH PROJECT: And (UNINTELLIGIBLE) disease, like insomnia, like deprivation, like (UNINTELLIGIBILE).
SADLER (on camera): A virtual absence of any determined international humanitarian push to alleviate the hardship here, say authorities, make this region vulnerable to even greater deprivation.
(voice-over): That explains why OMAR teams are also distributing food to far-flung communities.
Two months of conflict, the looting of food distribution centers, and a security vacuum have taken their toll.
MIR WAIS, RED CRESCENT: The people here are on the edge of the starvation, I mean. The situation has been like that for weeks and weeks, so there is a danger of starvation.
SADLER: Dotting this deprived environment as a green shoot of hope, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) inside rundown buildings, which pass for a school, are seeing the return of girls to lessons, five years after being denied education by the Taliban.
"They are happy," says Ragul (ph), because we came out of the darkness of ignorance into the light."
Their teachers are happy too, collecting their first pay in more than seven months, a new start for them all.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SADLER: Back to the hunt for Osama bin Laden, and there has been no let up in heavy American bombing of a suspected hiding place for Osama bin Laden, or his followers, in a mountain range that's just visible from Jalalabad here. Bombing by U.S. warplanes has been going on night and day, and as the first indication from a military commander here in Jalalabad that those bunker-busting weapons may be getting through to those underground tunnels in that impregnable Tora Bora mountain range with an unconfirmed report that Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian, a right-hand man of Osama bin Laden, may have been injured in the latest bombing -- back to you, Paula.
ZAHN: So, Brent, what is the specific evidence that would suggest that Osama bin Laden is actually in that cave-like setting in Tora Bora?
SADLER: Good question -- opinion is split on that, Paula. Some commanders here say they are 90 percent sure he's there; others say he may be in a slightly different area that's in another very difficult- to-attack fortress compound in the lower part of that Tora Bora mountain range.
What we do know is, according to reports here, that they are planning -- the mujahideen Afghans here are planning to launch with at least 1,500 to 2,000 fighters and attack against Osama bin Laden, who is reported to have sent through messengers within the past 24 hours, word that he doesn't want to fight his Muslim brethren. He will fight foreigners, he says, but he will not fight the mujahideen. They are paying no attention to that, and going ahead with their plans to attack -- Paula.
ZAHN: Brent Sadler -- thank you very much for that update.
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