wfn.org | Poor access makes Afghan relief difficult, pastor says

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

Nov. 6, 2001 News media contact: Linda Bloom7(212) 870-38037New York
10-21-71BP{515}

NOTE: Photographs will be available.

By United Methodist News Service

When the Rev. Ray Buchanan finally got into Afghanistan with a relief
assessment team in October, he felt like he'd climbed Mount Everest.

The area's geographic inaccessibility, combined with other factors such as
weather and the roadblocks of a post-Soviet bureaucracy, make relief work
here more complex than any other location he's encountered, Buchanan told
United Methodist News Service in a Nov. 5 interview.

For this United Methodist pastor, founder and executive director of Stop
Hunger Now, that makes it worse than the Sahara Desert, southern Sudan or
the Congo.

But time is of the essence in a country where much of the population is
vulnerable to starvation and exposure to a harsh winter. "The winter there
is just going to be brutal," Buchanan said. "Two days after we left, they
had a sandstorm where they clocked winds at over 100 miles an hour."

Buchanan was in Afghanistan and Tajikistan with representatives of Food for
the Hungry International, World Concern, Northwest Medical Teams and the
Central Asia Development Agency, an organization already active in
Tajikistan. "What we were doing on the trip was forming a partnership to
actively respond to what was happening in Afghanistan," he explained.

The "sheer scope of the need" is another hurdle. These organizations have
limited their response to 38,000 families at risk, or about 266,000 people.
"We've targeted a small portion of one province that includes three
villages," he said.

Besides the difficulties of accessibility, including moving supplies across
the border between Tajikistan and Afghanistan, the Takar province "is still
a very active war zone," Buchanan noted. "While we were there, we almost got
caught in live rocket fire at night."

The organizations rented a compound in Dashti-qala to serve as the center of
their operations. The compound is in the same general area as Khojja Boddin,
home to the Northern Alliance headquarters, according to Buchanan.

Activities will include the distribution of food, winter clothing and
blankets, along with some health care provided by a doctor and two nurses,
expected to be in place by mid-November. Tom Love, an American who had
worked for Food for the Hungry International in Malaysia, already is on site
as director. 

Stop Hunger Now, based in Raleigh, N.C., already provided a $10,000 grant to
Food for the Hungry International to allow for rapid shipping and staff
deployment to Central Asia. Now Buchanan is working to raise $100,000 for
food and to cover the cost of shipping five containers of winter clothes and
two containers of blankets. He said if he can get a donation to cover the
$50,000 shipping cost, all other money raised would go directly for food.

"Without assistance, these people will be dead before the end of the year,"
he declared. "Basically, our project is to get them through the winter and
through the next harvest season."

More information on Stop Hunger Now's campaign for Afghan relief is
available at www.stophungernow.org or by calling toll free at (888)
501-8440. Donations also can be made online at the Web site.

# # #

*************************************
United Methodist News Service
Photos and stories also available at:
http://umns.umc.org