The Boston Globe
November 19
overnment bureaucracy and security concerns in
this
former Soviet republic have delayed urgently needed shipments of aid to
Afghanistan, United Nations and relief agencies said on November 18.
Relief workers lining up at the Amu Darya river port, a site on the Afghan border that had been intended as a central distribution point for humanitarian aid, have been prevented from making the crossing into Afghanistan to distribute the food and medical aid that began to trickle across on barges last week.
"It's very frustrating to see Afghanistan right there across the river and not be allowed to get there, knowing the desperate needs on the other side," said Louis Sida, the emergency co-ordinator for Save the Children.
"They are letting some of the food and medicine through, but that doesn't mean anything if we are not there to distribute it to the people who need it," he added.
Mr. Sida said that with winter looming, "every day matters" in getting relief operations underway. "The consequences of these delays are very severe."
UNICEF officials have estimated that 128,000 Afghan children will die without a massive distribution of aid before the winter.
UNICEF studies have found that even before Sept. 11, one in five Afghan children under the age of five dies from malnutrition and lack of basic medicine.
More than 50,000 tonnes of food will need to be delivered every month, UN officials say. Since Wednesday, only 1,150 tonnes of food have been allowed through on a handful of barges permitted to cross the border, which had been closed since 1998.
Aid workers say the delays are primarily caused by a wall of bureaucracy constructed around the Uzbekistan government.
The Uzbek government says it is being cautious because of security concerns, mainly the need to control its border to prevent retreating Taliban and al-Qaeda forces from flowing into Uzbekistan.