Nine millions Afghans are threatened with starvation – International community must finally act!

Afghanistan is threatened in the coming winter with a famine, warned the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV). „Nine million people in north and central Afghanistan will be dependent on international aid in the coming months on account of bad harvests”, said the GfbV Asia consultant, Ulrich Delius, on Wednesday. There is an urgent need of more humanitarian aid in addition to the reconstruction programme to prevent the worst happening. Peace and stability in the region are in danger as a result of the rapid increase of poverty and hunger. If the international community does not manage to stop the increasing misery of the rural population of Afghanistan they will lose the fight against the Taliban.

„In German politics there is a tendency towards glossing over the problems in Afghanistan, but a more realistic approach is definitely needed”, said Delius. Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier praised the successful reconstruction in 32,000 villages on 25th September in the German Parliament, but success stories of this kind simply make the small farmers in Afghanistan shake their heads in bewilderment. In the province of Bamyan farming families have had to feed themselves with grass and animal fodder because no relief deliveries came. At no time in the past 30 years of civil war has the situation of the rural population been so bad. The investment of 15 thousand million US dollars in reconstruction since the fall of the Taliban has not improved the living conditions of the farmers. The growing mcorruption and high salaries of foreign experts and the profits of the foreign firms involved in reconstruction have eaten up most of the aid.

At least one fifth of the 25 million Afghans are living today under the poverty level. Forty percent of the population is unemployed. In recent months as a result of the past hard winter and the following drought the position of the farmers has worsened dramatically. Wheat prices have risen since the beginning of the year by 60 percent. For most Afghans today 85 percent of their income goes on the purchase of food.

In view of the increasing poverty particularly of the rural population it is hardly surprising that the Taliban has been able to extend its influence in northern Afghanistan as well. If the international community does not coordinate its aid and manage to take more effective measures against corruption and against the increasing impoverishment of the population at large, the Taliban will steadily become more powerful.