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CNN Saturday Morning News
Humanitarian Crisis Builds in Northern Afghanistan
Aired October 06, 2001 - 07:17 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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: A massive humanitarian crisis has developed in northern Afghanistan, and that's where nearly half a million Afghan refugees have converged, needing food, shelter, and other basic needs.
CNN's Chris Burns joins us live from there with more on international efforts to provide relief. Hi, Chris.
CHRIS BURNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kyra.
Before I get to that, about that aircraft that flew over Kabul, we didn't see it or hear it from here. We're about 45 miles north of there. However, tensions have been high here today. This is the first clear day in a couple -- several days. It's been very windy, very dusty the last few days, so perhaps this could be a good day for a drone, if it is a drone, to be flying over Kabul today.
What we have heard today around here, not far from the front, is artillery fire, some kind of artillery fire, sporadic. However, we have heard it every few hours, and there could be more today as well. In the north, the situation is also very tense, where there's fighting also between the Northern Alliance and the Taliban.
That fighting is causing an increasing refugee situation. We went up to a refugee camp not far from here, about an hour north of here, where we saw tents that are growing and growing, more and more tents that are being built there. Officials say that they're going to need hundreds more to accommodate those who are arriving. They say that up to 500 people are coming up north from Kabul by the day. They talk about how they need everything from clothes to tents to more shelter, all kinds of things that they need they're not getting, and that with the onset of winter within about a month, that could also cause problems in shipping some of these supplies over the mountains.
We saw as night fell, we went to one tent where a family was living on bread and water. That is an example of what are -- relief officials are saying is that in the next week or so, some 400,000 people in the areas of the fighting in the north could run out of food, causing a serious humanitarian situation, perhaps even starvation, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Chris, I understand that 30 -- $320 million has been allocated from the Bush administration to go toward humanitarian aid. Have you heard much about this, where it will go to directly? And if indeed the reaction from the people there, are they aware of this?
BURNS: Well, the Northern Alliance officials here are aware of that. They are concerned that perhaps not enough is going to actually get into Afghanistan. In fact, most of the aid agencies are prepositioning their aid on the countries on the periphery, like Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan.
Very difficult to get supplies in here. In fact, there's even a report about how Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is considering air drops of supplies, of food and supplies into Afghanistan when the winter does set in.
The question is, how do you get the aid here? How much of it will actually be shipped here? Officials here are concerned how much aid they're going to get with the onset of wider fighting happening, as well as winter. That could really impede the shipment of supplies inside northern Afghanistan, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Chris Burns inside Afghanistan, thank you so much.
Well, Refugee International is a name you will hear repeated, repeatedly during the Afghan humanitarian crisis. It's the main agency working to provide for displaced people.
Director Larry Thompson is standing by in Islamabad with an update on the refugee situation. Thank you so much for being with us, Mr. Thompson.
LARRY THOMPSON, DIRECTOR, REFUGEE INTERNATIONAL: Thank you.
PHILLIPS: As Chris Burns just mentioned, it...
THOMPSON: Pleased to be here.
PHILLIPS: It's good to have you with us. Chris Burns was just mentioning the air drops. We were talking about ways that humanitarian aid can get through to the refugees.
Air drops, is that a reality or is that too dangerous right now?
THOMPSON: Well, I don't think anybody's planning to use air drops until the winter does set in, as Chris said, in November. It would be dangerous. In order to bring in civilian air drops, you would certainly have to have a safe corridor for the airplanes to fly in. You also have to do some work on the ground. If you're going to drop 50-pound or 50-kilogram sacks of what out the door of an aircraft, you've got to have somebody on the ground clearing people out of the area where they're going to fall so they don't hit people on the head.
There's another way of doing it, and that is to drop small packets that weigh less than a pound in plastic sacks, and they sort of flutter to the ground. They don't hurt anybody. But it's an expensive and difficult process to carry out air drops.
PHILLIPS: What type of numbers are we talking about, Mr. Thompson, with regard to the numbers of refugees right now?
THOMPSON: Well, what you have at the moment is, you have fears of a refugee crisis, in which the U.N. estimates that up to 1.5 million people could rush toward the borders of Afghanistan seeking refuge in Pakistan or Iran. But within Afghanistan itself, you have an estimated 7 million people who are short of food. A lot of those will become critically short of food very shortly.
Now, one thing people say, or people criticize this operation, they say we're feeding the Taliban. That's not true. The people who receive this food will be the most vulnerable people, orphans, children under 5, pregnant women, the elderly, widows. Men with AK- 47s are not going to starve in here. We're trying to get food in to the most vulnerable people in Afghanistan.
PHILLIPS: You mentioned that some of the people that are the most dependent on this help are the widows. Tell me some personal stories. I mean, you've been there now for a while observing U.N. preparations for this crisis and potential sites for refugee camps. Tell me a little bit more about that, and also some personal stories that you've encountered.
THOMPSON: Well, I recall a farmer I talked to two or three months ago up in northeastern Afghanistan, not far from where Chris Burns is now. And I asked him what he was going to do when he ran out of food. And he said he would go to the nearest town and hope that some aid reached there. I asked him why he didn't go to Pakistan. He said, "How would I get to Pakistan? I have no money to get there."
So you have a lot of people in Afghanistan who are, what we say, stuck in place. They have nowhere to go. The food is going to have to get to them, or they're in very, very serious trouble this winter.
PHILLIPS: Is Refugee International prepared for this crisis?
THOMPSON: We're an advocacy group. Essentially, I'm out here assessing preparations that are being made for both the refugee crisis and the humanitarian crisis inside Afghanistan. I think the international community, the U.N., has done a real good job so far in preparing for things. However, we're going to have to get a lot more food into Afghanistan very quickly. Last week, the World Food Program got food into several areas of Afghanistan, but it was less than half that which is needed.
PHILLIPS: One last question for you before we let you go, Mr. Thompson, and that is, the Bush administration allocating $320 million to go toward this humanitarian effort to give aid. Where do you see the first need? Where would you like to see that money go first?
THOMPSON: I think there are -- the most immediate need is getting additional food into Afghanistan. So that has to be the top priority. The second priority is to prepare for a possible refugee exodus. This would mean preparing refugee campsites, digging wells, providing shelter and other essential items to potential refugees.
PHILLIPS: Larry Thompson, director of Refugee International, thank you, sir, for being with us this morning.
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