Afghanistan's winter of mass death closes in

By ALAN PERROTT

A pall of death is descending on the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

A starving human mass greater than the population of Auckland is struggling to escape 23 years of war, the worst drought in 30 years and the approaching bitter winter.

For Julian Smith, Save the Children UK's Afghan programme manager, the next few months will be depressingly dismal.

He likens his work to the effort to clear away the collapsed World Trade Center - you work as hard as you can every day, but it doesn't seem to make any difference.

"People are about to die on a massive scale; that is basic fact. All we can do is try to minimise the number. This is a devastating situation. It has been a slowly evolving crisis, but since the tragedy in America it has begun to spiral out of control and winter isn't even here."

Up to 1.5 million anxious Afghans are thought to be descending on Pakistan.

A further 500,000 to one million are drifting north to Tajikistan.

The Pakistan Government has officially closed the border, so people are crossing wherever they can and squeezing into refugee camps - some of which are already crammed with up to 100,000 people.

In most cases there is little or no safe drinking water or sanitation. Diarrhoea reaps a daily harvest.

"Under normal circumstances at least a quarter of all Afghan children do not live to see their fifth birthday, and only about 12 per cent of the entire population have access to clean drinking water," Mr Smith told the Weekend Herald last night.

"But circumstances are now far from normal. I have never seen anything on this scale."

The winter will bring fresh dangers. Night temperatures can plummet to minus 30 degrees. A good day may nudge a balmy zero.

Everything, except the fighting, will grind to a halt.

Mr Smith said exposure killed 500 people in one night at one camp last year. But he said those who reached the camps could consider themselves very lucky.

"Those still stuck in Afghanistan are in a very bad way. I visited one village this year that had not seen any rain for 2 1/2 years. The crops had failed for three years running ... But even so they were offering me whatever they had.

"This is a very hospitable, proud people. It is a privilege to work with them."

Mr Smith feared the Afghan spirit could be a casualty of the famine.

"Several generations have now grown up knowing nothing but war and famine. Sixty per cent of children have seen brothers, sisters or parents die. Who knows what that will do to the country."

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