UMCOR Responds to Afghan Crisis

Date: October 8, 2001

Even before the United States and its allies began targeted bombing in Afghanistan on Oct. 7, UMCOR and its ecumenical partners were preparing their own response to the expected humanitarian crisis. The UMCOR office in Tajikistan is positioning itself to work with refugees arriving in that country from Afghanistan.

Weakened by starvation caused by longtime war and four years of drought, many Afghans already had fled to Pakistan and other neighboring countries in anticipation of U.S. military action against the Taliban.

Now, despite an initial air drop of 37,000 food ration packets in Afghanistan at the same time as the bombing, more refugees are expected to arrive at the border camps. The United States has pledged to attempt to deliver $320 million in food and medical supplies to help Afghanistan's people.

UMCOR is working with Church World Service, the relief agency of the U. S. National Council of Churches, to provide shelter kits to 15,000 families as they arrive in the border cities of Quetta and Peshawar as well as to internally displaced people at settlements in central and northern Afghanistan.

Staff and local partners will implement the program, coordinated with fellow members of Action By Churches Together (ACT), local organizations and a United Nations emergency task force. The United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) is among the ACT members.

The shelter kits, estimated at $90 each, include a family tent, a ground sheet, a plastic sheet and four blankets. Church World Service estimates the total cost of the project, with transportation, support and storage costs, at $1.55 million.

8 million Afghans – more than a third of the total population – are in need of immediate aid. Of that number, more than 4 million are already outside the country and another million are internally displaced.

   

Map of Afghanistan


Map: New Internationalist Publications Ltd, 55 Rectory Road, Oxford, OX4 1BW, U.K. See Country Profiles.

How to Help

UMCOR 9/11 Update September 2004: UMCOR's response to the aftermath of September 11 continues. We thank are thankful for all of contributions that United Methodists and others have so generously given.

Photo: Family who arrived to the Mashlak Camp for displaced near the western Afghan city of Herat in July 2001. The area where the camp sits is like a dessert and summers are terrible hot and dry here but during winter people die from temperatures below 0 C. Credit: Nils Carstensen/ACT International

Source: United Methodist News Service.