Drought leaves thousands destitute

Hundreds of families in southern Afghanistan have been displaced by a drought. Abdul Ahad, 40, said it had forced him out of his village in the Seyourray district of the southern province of Zabul. He lost his cattle, wheat and grapes when his village well ran dry four months ago. “Everything I planted there is now dead due to the harsh drought this year,” Ahad, a father-of-six, said on Sunday from Kalat city, capital of Zabul province, where he and his destitute family had just arrived. He said that he desperately needed help to feed his malnourished family and to find somewhere to live. Zabul was the province most badly affected by the country’s worst drought on record between 1998 and 2001. The drought has also touched parts of the north and east of Afghanistan and has been caused by poor spring rains and low snow melt. Gulab Shah Alikhail, a spokesman for Zabul’s governor, said more than 500 families had been displaced from their villages due to drought. “Most have had no choice but to come to Kalat to prevent starvation. They are still coming…they are in very poor condition,” Alikhail said. Thousands of families were also affected by the lack of water in the neighbouring provinces of Helmand, Kandahar and Oruzgan. “More than 4,000 families have been displaced during the past two months from Baghran, Washer, Nowzad and other districts of Helmand due to the worse drought in the area in years,” Haji Mohaiuddin, a spokesman for Helmand’s governor, said from the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah. Humanitarian organisations in the south advocate emergency aid to stop the stream of villagers becoming an exodus. “If essential steps are not taken by the government and aid agencies, hundreds of other families will also leave their villages,” Assadullah Mayar, head of the Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS) of Helmand, said. The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) had warned that Afghanistan would face a reduced harvest this year due to drought. An estimated 6.5 million Afghans already faced hunger in the country, according to the government. Ebadullah Ebadi, a WFP spokesman, said that it was waiting for the results of a government drought assessment in the provinces of Helmand, Uruzgan and Zabul before making any decisions. The most recent government figures suggest a regional cereal deficit of more than a million metric tones, up from a previous estimate in April of 500,000mt. “As nutritional status deteriorates from now till the spring, a balanced food basket will have to be provided, including cereals, pulses, oil and iodized salt for at least a portion of the newly vulnerable population, “ Charles Vincent, WFP’s head of mission in Kabul, said.