ACT appeals for help to
Afghan people

According to reports from Afghanistan tens of thousands of people are fleeing their homes in fear of a possible military attack. UN and NGOs fear that military action could create a humanitarian disaster of a massive scale. Afghanistan’s neighbours have currently closed their borders. Three millions Afghan refugees already live in Pakistan (2 million) and Iran (1 million). ACT members, as other humanitarian organisations, are faced with an uncertain situation as to when the crisis will peak.

As ACT member NCA, working through a network of local NGOs in Pakistan and Afghanistan, points out, many of those, who left their homes in the cities, may have gone to their home villages or stay with relatives or friends and therefore will not appear in a camp. NCA partners have started to identify most urgent needs among people in the Logar province, where food and non-food items are already being distributed. Border areas where groups are said to be waiting for the border to open are being surveyed. In case of continued border closure, camps may also be established in rural areas inside the borders of Afghanistan.

NCA will focus on providing water, sanitation services and shelter but will also provide food and non-food items for immediate needs, medical supplies, clothes and give some psychosocial assistance.

CWS will focus on shelter. The project aims to provide emergency shelter kits to the most vulnerable families, who have been either internally displaced or have crossed the border. The project targets 15,000 families or more than 100,000 people and will be implemented in refugee camps outside Peshawar in NWFP province and near Quetta in Balochistan province and IDP settlements in Central and Northern Afghanistan through local NGOs. According to CWS the new arrivals from Pakistan are mainly from the urban centers of Kandhar, Kabul and Jalalabad.

 Christian Aid will provide emergency relief in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran. The programmes are focusing on the distribution of food and other basic relief items and some assistance in agriculture.

ACT member MECC working in cooperation with the Iranian Red Crescent will focus on Afghan refugees in Iran and refugee groups concentrated alongside the Iranian-Afghan border. The response will entail food and non-food distributions such as tents and medical assistance.

ACT member UMCOR has offered to distribute needed items through its office in Tajikistan.

ACT member Lutheran World Federation (LWF) has offered is assistance although it has no presence on the ground in Afghanistan nor its immediate surrounding states. LWF does, however, have skills, experience and resources - in the region (India, Bangladesh and Jerusalem) and worldwide - to support those agencies on the ground - through strategic partnerships within the ACT alliance.