Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Saturday Morning News
U.N. Moves Aid Shipments Toward Afghanistan
Aired September 29, 2001 - 09:02 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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: The United Nations at this time helping to move aid shipments from Pakistan in toward Afghanistan, amid fears of a potential refugee disaster.
The latest on that from CNN's Mike Chinoy in Peshawar, Pakistan. He is live in this report now.
Mike, hello again to you.
MIKE CHINOY, CNN SENIOR ASIA CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Bill.
Well, today, finally, the first aid shipment heading towards Afghanistan since the events of September 11 got under way, a highly unusual one. A convoy of trucks organized by UNICEF, 200,000 metric tons of emergency supplies, food, medical kits, blankets, and so on.
The route of this convey up into the mountains along the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan at a pass 4,000 meters high. All those 200 metric tons' worth of material will be taken off the vehicles and put onto hundreds, perhaps thousands, of donkeys and horses.
The donkeys and horses will then go through the mountain passes, down into the northern Afghan province of Badakshan (ph), where conditions are so bad that one aid worker I spoke with who was there about three weeks ago said people were literally taking blades of grass and boiling them for food because there was so little to eat.
This is in an area controlled by the Northern Alliance. The commanders there have guaranteed the security of this convey. Meanwhile, the United Nations continues to work on efforts to get food relief supplies into the parts of Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban. The Taliban has largely shut down the operations of the international aid agencies since the crisis began, and so there's grave concern for the many hundreds of thousands of Afghans in really dire conditions on the Afghan side of the border.
Meanwhile, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees is saying that between 10,000 and 20,000 Afghan refugees fled across the border just in the area around the southern Pakistani city of Quetta just in the past week. UNHCR officials say in their worst-case scenario, they're looking for up to a million Afghan refugees to come into just this northwest frontier province of Pakistan should the crisis worsen -- Bill. HEMMER: Mike, I can't help but notice on the side of a lot of those aid bags it says "U.S.A." A couple questions. Does that stamp of the United States of America, or does that represent something else? And secondly, knowing where you are, there is opposition to the U.S. How have they reacted to that aid coming in?
CHINOY: No, the aid is coming from the U.S. The U.S. is one of the many donor countries that has long been supplying aid to Afghanistan for humanitarian reasons well before this crisis. And for the people who are critical of the government's stance, I don't think this whole refugee crisis would register in terms of the question you raised. The United States is the target of their anger, they blame the U.S. for everything that's going wrong.
It is worth pointing out, however, that the Islamic fundamentalists here in Pakistan who've been staging angry demonstrations, calling for a holy war against the U.S. and the Pakistani government if it continues to collaborate, those demonstrations have been poorly attended, small turnout. The evidence suggests, for the moment anyway, that there's a silent majority of Pakistanis who can live with the government's decision to side with Washington -- Bill.
HEMMER: Interesting stuff. Mike Chinoy, thank you, in Pakistan. We will check back in later.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
