PRESS BRIEFING BY THE U.N. OFFICES FOR PAKISTAN AND AFGHANISTAN (02 January 2002)

The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today’s briefing at the United Nations Information Centre in Islamabad by the United Nations offices for Pakistan and Afghanistan (excluding question and answer session).

** Eric Falt, Director, UN Information Centre

Good afternoon. I don’t really have anything to tell you, other than to wish you a happy new year and to inform you that –-because the Pakistani Foreign Office has instituted daily briefings at 3:00 pm—- we will now move our daily briefings to 4:15 pm.

** Einar Holtet, Spokesperson for the Office of the Humanitarian Co-ordinator for Afghanistan

Malnutrition has reached alarming levels in the northwestern part of Afghanistan. Records from a children’s nutritional programme in Quadis, a district of Badghis province, show that about fifty per cent of the children were suffering from severe malnutrition.

The NGO responsible for the survey plans to begin a feeding programme in western and northwestern Afghanistan covering the provinces of Badghis, Farah, Herat and Ghor. The programme will aim at rapid nutritional improvements and will provide sugar and oil to all pregnant and lactating mothers and children under five.

Several NGOs have warned that there is now an urgent need to diversify the food supplies in remote areas in Northwest where supplies are insufficient and families have no means to get food. Pulses, oil and corn/soya blend (CSB) are needed for giving the malnourished individuals a minimum intake of proteins, fat and vitamins.

So to transport and security matters: The transport corridor from Quetta to Herat has reopened for much needed deliveries from Pakistan into southwest Afghanistan. Security in and around Kandahar is still not good enough, and access to several areas in southern Afghanistan is restricted, due to movements of armed elements and weaponry, bombing raids and fear
of Taliban elements in the area.

In eastern Afghanistan the situation is in part similar to that in the South. In and around Jalalabad security is still slightly unstable for the same set of reasons. The United Nations is currently conducting security assessments in Kandahar and Jalalabad. If
these are positive, UN international will resume activity in these locations.

Administrative procedures in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have been changed to further facilitate cross-border deliveries. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Tajikistan has issued an official note allowing international staff to be issued multiple crossing
permits, valid for three months for the crossings of Farkhor and Nizhni Pyanj. Clearance has been given for Uzbek drivers working for the United Nations to cross from Termez to Hairaton.

** Fadela Chaib, Spokesperson for WHO

Since yesterday, the measles immunizations campaign which aims to vaccinate up to 9 million children in Afghanistan is on-going in Kabul. We are expecting to receive the first data about the coverage percentage late this afternoon or tomorrow.

Regarding the families and communities, it seems that mothers were very enthusiastic and committed to immunize their children. This was a great rush as the campaign posts opened for vaccination. All WHO EPI teams and UNICEF also were very committed as they were working during holidays and weekends. In the past days, 36 trainers, 29 supervisors and 1000 service
providers received a full training in Kabul. To ensure an effective campaign, WHO translated the vaccinators/ health workers guide to Dari and was given to the teams. It will also be used in other regions for training and supervision.

The health officials of the Ministry of Public Health highlighted the need for quality of the campaign and appreciated the support of WHO, UNICEF, and participating NGOs. WHO is supporting the Ministry in micro planning, training of trainers, supervisors, vaccinators and health workers and monitoring. WHO, UNICEF and their partners will continue to have daily
meetings to monitor the campaign.

In Kunduz, WHO, UNICEF, the Ministry and NGOs attended today a meeting to discuss the implementation of the measles campaign in Kunduz and Takhar in order to reach children in areas most difficult to access.

In Kandahar, WHO is working and restarting its routine activities such as coordinating health activities, providing drugs and equipment to health facilities. The situation in general is quiet and the morale is very high according to our staff there.

According to the new Health Director in Kandahar, there is a shortage of health workers as most of the doctors are outside the city. The health situation is of great concern, because hospitals and health facilities in the southern region are in dire need of
medical supplies and equipment. There is also a need for short- term training for health workers. WHO, in collaboration with the health sector workers are working to meet the needs in the southern region.

** Chulho Hyun, Spokesperson for UNICEF

As you have heard from my colleague from WHO, a critical drive to immunize young children against measles is ongoing in Afghanistan. If I may raise some additional points for your attention.

The campaign has started in Kabul, where there are some 200 vaccination centres set up at mosques and hospitals, to vaccinate 1.2 million children, between the ages of six months and 12 years, before expanding to the rest of the country in the coming three months.

The ultimate goal is to immunize at least 9 million children, and to prevent 35,000 deaths from the disease each year, in a country where measles is among the greatest killers among vaccine-preventable diseases.

The UN estimates that nearly 700,000 children in Afghanistan get measles in a normal year. In the current conditions, we would expect that figure to be much higher. Again, the normal fatality rate is around five per cent, or 35,000 children per year.

What makes the campaign so urgent? First and foremost, the winter.Children are very vulnerable to infection in cold weather. Crowded conditions, such as the one seen in camps, also make children more vulnerable to infection. Then there’s the poor nutrition situation.

We may not have the picture for the whole country, but in places where we do have reliable information, we believe that children are in worse shape than they were before the watershed events of last September.

At this time, to cite a UNICEF colleague who took part in the inauguration of the Kabul-phase of the immunization, this project is one of the best gifts we can give to the children of Afghanistan.

** Fatoumata Kaba, Spokesperson for UNHCR

At the Chaman border in southern Pakistan, 4,000 to 5,000 individuals are waiting in no man’s land to be admitted into Pakistan at the Killi Faizo camp. They arrived yesterday from southern Afghanistan. This is the first time in several weeks that we are seeing such a large number of arrivals from Afghanistan. On the contrary, the trend has been one of returns by the
thousands daily.

We are likely to be confronted with space problems if such influx continues into the Chaman area where camps are nearing full capacity. Our camp in Roghani is full with 17,000 refugees and that of Landi Kareze having space left for only three more thousand refugees out of the 10,000 spaces that were available. The United Arab Emirates-run camp at Roghani is also
nearing full capacity with 9,000 refugees on the site out of 10,000 available spaces. Managers of the UAE camp are willing to do an extension of the camp, but such exercise is time consuming. Moreover, the Killi Faizo staging camp also has some 3,000 refugees already on site despite the ongoing transfers.

UNHCR is holding meetings today with government and key operational partners to discuss possible alternatives to accommodate these new arrivals. An NGO coming from Kandahar at about 1:00 p.m. today informed UNHCR in Chaman about the intention of many residents of the southern Afghanistan city to head for Pakistan. We do not know for the moment what is the reason of flight of these Afghans.

In a more positive development, in the North West Frontier Province region, UNHCR has transferred another 1,600 refugees from Jalozai, near Peshawar, to Bajour and Kurram Agencies this morning, improving our effort to accelerate the movement to 2,000 refugees transferred each day. Yesterday, we transferred 1,400 refugees. There are now over 16,000 refugees in the
Kotkai camp, which has a capacity for 20,000 refugees. We are however, prepared to open seven new sites in NWFP in the coming weeks in Khyber, Khuram and Mohmand Agencies.

In Iran yesterday, several trucks carrying 3000 mattresses, 7520 blankets, 1500 jerry cans, 7560 soap bars and 312 lanterns left Mashad for the city of Herat, Afghanistan, where the convoy is expected to arrive today. However, shortage of trucks in Islam Qala, an Afghan district near the Iranian border, for onward transport of the aid to Herat, may delay the convoy. This third

UNHCR humanitarian aid convoy from Iran to western Afghanistan is to be delivered to some 7,500 persons (1,500 families) in the Herat area.

Still in Iran, since the 24th of December an average of 900 persons cross the border at Dogharoun daily, down from a recent high of nearly 8,000 returns in one day from Iran to Afghanistan at the same crossing point. We are investigating the reasons for this dramatic drop in spontaneous returns.

This weekend, meanwhile, UNHCR re-opened the Islam Qala office to monitor returns from Iran. Since the fall of the Taliban, over 45,000 Afghans originally from the north of Afghanistan, have returned from Iran through the Dogharoun crossing point, adjacent to Islam Qala. Tajiks and persons in the age 18 to 55 age group, form the bulk of those returning. However, more Pashtuns are also returning. Some 58% of those UNHCR interviewed planned to live in Herat. Like most Afghans, they are farmers. Regarding their intentions to remain in Afghanistan now that they have returned they told UNHCR that it all depends on the employment and security situations inside Afghanistan.

** Wagdi Othman, Spokesperson for WFP

Preparations for a citywide food distribution in Herat by the World Food Programme are ongoing. The registration process has been finalised last week and WFP is now selecting the most vulnerable among the 60,000 families living in Herat (the population of the town is estimated to be close to 450,000 people).

The distribution is scheduled to start on Sunday. It is a one-off food distribution. Each family will receive a 50 kg bag of wheat. WFP has already pre-positioned 5,000 metric tons of wheat. The distribution will be carried out by our NGO partner,
World Vision International.

This is the second large-scale food aid distribution in an urban centre in Afghanistan. Last month, some 1.3 million people received WFP food rations in Kabul.

We are pleased to report a substantial decrease of food prices in the main urban centres like Kabul, Faizabad, Herat and Jalalabad. In Kabul, the price of a kilogram of wheat decreased by almost 50 percent, from 5,429 Afghani to 3,000.

The price of a kilogram of wheat flour, used to make bread one of the main commodities consumed by the Afghan people, decreased by 35 percent, from 6,857 Afghani to 4,428. WFP market price surveys show a steady decline in the price of gas oil, wheat and wheat flour. WFP is now analysing this data to find out the main factors of this downward trend.

As announced on Monday, WFP has sent an unprecedented amount of food into Afghanistan during the month of December, almost 116, 000 metric tons. WFP will now scale down deliveries back to 40 to 50,000 metric tons a month and focus on the nutritional situation of people affected by three years of drought.

Many of the drought-affected people live in areas such as the central highlands and the northeastern province of Badakshan that are already cut-off by winter.

WFP has specialised snow teams from Canada and Sweden positioned in these areas and is working to keep roads open using all weather trucks, some of which are fitted with special snow clearing equipment.

WFP is also working to deploy helicopters in case they are needed to do rapid assessments to determine priority areas for food distributions during the peak winter months.