Carlotta Gall of The New York Times has reported on severe food insecurity across the central provinces of Hazaristan. Here are snippets of the report.
“The British charity Oxfam, which conducted a provincial assessment of conditions in the province of Daikundi (Hazaristan), one of the most remote areas of central Afghanistan, has appealed for international assistance before winter sets in. Time is running out of to avert a humanitarian crisis, it said.
“The assessment is echoed by the border region, including in Bamiyan province. In all these 30 years of war, we had not it as bad as this.” said Muhammad, a-60-year-old farmer who lives in Yakawlang, in Bamiyan. “We don’t have enough food for the winter. We will have to go to the town to look for a work.”
The Governor of Bamiyan, Habiba Sarabi, has repeatedly complained that because her province has been one of the most law-abiding and trouble-free, it has been forgotten in the big distribution of resources from international donors.
Donors and in particular the United States government, have spent far larger amounts in the provinces in the south and southeast to help combat the dual problems of insurgency and narcotics, she said.
Hasan Samadi, 23, the deputy administrative of Yakawlang district in Bamiyan Province, said “the economic situation of the people here is very bad and the government is not focused to help.”
“They focus on other provinces and unfortunately not on Bamiyan” he said.
Daikundi, adjacent to Bamiyan, is one of the most underfinanced provinces in the country. It receives hald of the budget to its neighbor to the south Oruzgan, which has two thirds the population and a poor record in combating insurgency and cultivation of the opium poppy, said Matt Waldman, a spokesman for Oxfam in Kabul.
In Daikundi, 90 percent of the population relies on substance farming, yet the provincial Department of Agriculture of only $2,400 for the whole year, he added.
The imbalance in aid to the provinces is being corrected now, Governor Sarabi said, but in the meantime it has put great strain on the people in her province.
She estimated that a quarter of Bamiyan’s population would need food aid this winter because of the draught. There have already been local conflicts over water supplies in two regions, she said.