By AMIR ZIA, Associated Press
ISLAMABAD,
Pakistan - As many as one million Afghans could starve to death
this winter unless the international community quickly provides
aid to cope with the country's worst drought in decades, World
Food Program officials said Friday.
The WFP is
feeding about 2.3 million Afghans but is running out of funds,
Gerard van Dijk, the food program's director for Afghanistan,
told reporters in the Pakistani capital.
"If we
don't act fast, there will be a Somalia-like situation in Afghanistan,"
Dijk said. He was referring to the perennial famine in the African
nation that has claimed thousands of lives.
Unless there
are more contributions, the WFP will run out of food by February,
when Afghanistan's bitter winter is at its worst, Dijk said. He
said the WFP has asked for $53 million in emergency aid but that
donations have only trickled in.
"We have
received some donations and pledges over the last few months,
but they fell short of our appeals," he said. "The devastating
drought has forced us to accelerate deliveries of food, and our
resources are quickly depleting."
Months of
relentless drought have devastated fields and orchards in the
south and central regions of Afghanistan, an impoverished country
devastated by a civil war and controlled by a militia that practices
a fundamentalist brand of Islam. Entire herds have been killed
and nomadic tribes have been relocated to towns and villages.
The WFP estimates
that the drought has severely hit as many as 4 million Afghans,
and affected as many as 12 million.
The Taliban
religious army, which rules 95 percent of Afghanistan, has ferried
water and food supplies to some of the remotest villages but has
requested more outside aid, Dijk said.
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