Radio Netherlands
November 5
oth American strategists and international aid organisations have discovered Uzbekistan as a country with
the ideal logistics for setting up an operation inside Afghanistan. A strategically important bridge connects this former
Soviet republic with Afghanistan. But the border has been closed for years, and there is no sign that the Uzbek authorities
are willing to open it up very soon. In the meantime, more than a million people on the other side of the border are
threatened with starvation.
Just a few kilometres outside the border town of Termez, the mosque of Al-Hakim at-Termezi towers above the Amu Darya River which separates Uzbekistan from Afghanistan. From the mosque's garden, there is a clear view to the other side of the river. This is Afghan territory, still in the hands of the Taliban, a stretch of desolate sands with not a single sign of human life. On the Uzbek side of the river, a double row of fences with barbed wire keeps visitors away from the actual border.
The bazaar in Termez is as lively as ever. Merchants are selling melons and pomegranates, lemons and other fruits from the nearby farmlands. Asked about the war on the other side of the border, many people say its proximity doesn't worry them a bit. They feel safe on their side of the river, the more so since the single bridge connecting Uzbekistan with Afghanistan has been closed since 1998.
A five minute's drive from the bazaar, aid workers for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the UNHCR, are unloading and stockpiling blankets and mattresses, just in case the border reopens. The Uzbek authorities say they are willing to allow humanitarian aid over the river into Afghanistan, via the river port of Termez. But it is highly unclear when this will happen, says Murad Kuchkinov, the UNHCR's representative in Termez. "I hope that before the start of winter we will be able to send humanitarian aid to Afghanistan," he adds.
The strategically important city of Mazar-i-Sharif, some sixty kilometres south of Termez, is a key destination for the aid. As long as this area remains in Taliban hands and the war continues, setting up an efficient aid operation will be difficult.
Aid organisations warn that hundreds of thousands of Afghans are threatened with starvation if help does not arrive quickly. Most of them are internally displaced people who have been affected by severe drought over the past years, says Kees-Jan Hooglander, in Uzbekistan for the Dutch organisation ZOA Refugee Care.
"There are only near the city Mazar-i-Sharif 500,000 internally displaced people. On top of that there are 900,000 vulnerable people who are in need of food very soon. The winter is coming, the people are in need and only around that city there are one million and 400,000 people in total eager to get food."
In Termez, few people seem to be worried about the suffering that is going on just over the border. Instead, the city is preparing for the celebration of its 2500th anniversary.