Press
Release
Six Planes, Scores of Trucks, and Hundreds
of Donkeys Deliver Much-Needed Relief
ISLAMABAD / GENEVA / NEW YORK, 2 October 2001 - Reaching
out to millions of Afghan children and women before the
start of the harsh winter season, the United Nations Children's
Fund launched four large humanitarian convoys on a journey
from Peshawar, Pakistan, toward four cities inside Afghanistan
today.
The "children's winter convoys" are headed
for Kabul, Herat, Jalalabad and Kandahar and carry hundreds
of tonnes of blankets, medicines, winter clothing, high-protein
food mix for children, shelter items, water purification
materials, and more.
The four convoys are travelling by truck and get underway
the same day that another UNICEF convoy headed for northern
Afghanistan transferred its cargo from four-wheel drive
vehicles to pack mules for the final trek across the snowy
Shah Saleem pass at a peak of some 4,600 metres. Some
800 donkeys are being used to make the high-mountain passage
from Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province into the Afghan
province of Badakhshan. The 200-tonne aid delivery includes
clothing, blankets, food, water supply, purification tablets
and educational materials.
In total, the five children's winter convoys are carrying
more than 500 tonnes of much needed relief items into
Afghanistan that will be distributed by UNICEF's five
sub-offices in the country. UNICEF has 70 national staff
members working in its sub-offices in Afghanistan.
"Waiting just isn't an option," said UNICEF
Executive Director Carol Bellamy, speaking from New York.
"The children and women of Afghanistan need these
items now. Winter is coming and conditions will only worsen."
Bellamy said that of the estimated 7.5 million Afghans
who may have to rely on international relief to survive
the winter, 20 per cent are children under the age of
five. A total of 70 per cent are children and women.
The UNICEF convoys into Afghanistan are part of a twin
strategy of delivering as much assistance as possible
inside the country while also building up supplies in
neighboring countries in case large numbers of Afghans
head toward the borders. Over the weekend, UNICEF relief
supplies arrived by airlift at both Peshawar and Turkmenabad,
in southeastern Turkmenistan.
A third relief flight departs UNICEF's supply hub in
Copenhagen on Wednesday headed for Meshad, an Iranian
town near the border with Afghanistan. A further flight
is expected to arrive in Quetta, Pakistan, later in the
week.
Last week UNICEF appealed for $36 million in donor support
to provide humanitarian relief to Afghan children and
women during the coming winter. The appeal was part of
a larger donor alert for some $584 million needed by UN
relief agencies and NGOs to help stave off a looming humanitarian
disaster caused by more than 20 years of war, three years
of drought, the ongoing displacement of people and the
onset of winter.
***
For further information contact:
Liza Barrie, UNICEF Media Section, New
York
Tel.: 212-326-7593, lbarrie@unicef.org
Alfred Ironside, UNICEF Media Section,
New York
Tel: 212-326-7261, e-mail: aironside@unicef.org
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