UNICEF worker on Afghan aid crisis

Hermione Youngs, from UNICEF, has just returned from an aid mission to Afghanistan. She joined us for a live forum and answered a selection of your questions.

To watch coverage of the forum, select the link below:

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As the military strikes on Afghanistan continue, aid agencies say the country is facing a growing humanitarian crisis.

Food is scarce and winter is fast approaching. Hermione Youngs, from the United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF, is just back from leading a convoy of desperately needed aid supplies into Afghanistan.

British-born Hermione, who has lived in Afghanistan for the past six years, had to use donkeys to transport the supplies of food and medicines over the mountains and to the families to whom they mean life or death.

What did she see in Afghanistan? What is the situation of the civilian population? What effect have the air strikes had?

Hermione answered your questions in a live forum on Tuesday.

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Transcript:

Newshost:
Today I am joined by Hermione Youngs who is from UNICEF. Hermione has paid several visits to Afghanistan and to Pakistan during the course of the last nine years or so and has only recently left Pakistan having made her most recent trip there. Hermione, you left Afghanistan earlier this month.

Hermione Youngs:
I left Afghanistan on 6th October after taking a convoy of emergency materials from Pakistan to the north of Afghanistan by road, by jeep and by donkey.

Newshost:
Tell us about the donkey side of it.

Hermione Youngs:
The only access we have into the north of Afghanistan from Pakistan at the moment is over the 4,500 metre Shah Saleem mountain pass and how we get the materials over there is by donkey. So we take the materials up to the village called Shah Saleem, everything is unloaded and then packed onto horses and donkeys. We had 220 metric tonnes of emergency supplies - food items, shoes, clothes for children, educational supplies - the materials were loaded onto the donkeys and taken over the mountains by donkeys and horses. Then we go down into Afghanistan and walk for two days with horses and donkeys before we get to a road again where they are reloaded onto trucks and then taken into the centre of Badakhshan in the north and from there they are distributed out to the people who require them.

Newshost:
So that's simply the only way of getting around in certain parts of the country?

Hermione Youngs:
At the present moment - yes and for the past four years this type of particular convoy has been taken in this way because of the internal fighting. It is the only access area for large convoys to go in. But unfortunately due to the weather conditions, we may get another one - maybe two - convoys in this way in the next two to three weeks but after that this route will be closed.

Newshost:
Because of the weather?

Hermione Youngs:
Because of the weather.

Newshost:
What can you tell us about the onslaught of winter - when is that likely to happen?

Hermione Youngs:
It is quite direct. Normally we say autumn starts on September 15th when the temperature drops quite dramatically and this year, true to form, it did. Then it gets cooler and cooler as the weeks go on. As I was going over with the convoy two weeks ago, the snow had started and the temperatures will and are getting very, very cold. In the areas where I work, during December, January, February it can get down to minus 35 degrees - with snow.

Newshost:
Let alone any military operation, how is that likely to hinder any aid operation from the likes of UNICEF?

Hermione Youngs:
Because of the military operations and because we might not be able to get aid in - then the cold will kill children. The children are very malnourished - they are hungry at the moment after the three-year drought. There was no crop this year in the areas where I work. People are hungry already. It is known that 1 in 4 children die anyway before they reach the age of 5. This year we anticipate that if there is no aid, no food, no clothing, no blankets - if we cannot get this aid in, we anticipate perhaps another 100,000 children could die on top of this - which is a huge figure, it is an absolute catastrophe. I don't know how the Afghan people will be able to cope with losing so many of their children.

Newshost:
Before we move onto the questions, what is your reaction to the news line today that the Taleban are opening up their own refugee camp inside Afghanistan to avoid large numbers of people going across the Pakistan border. Will that help?

Hermione Youngs:
It will help but they will need aid as well because they have nothing. They have been cut off. They will need the support from the aid agencies as well to ensure that the people that they want to look after can be looked after. Throughout Afghanistan, because of the situation at the moment, the drought and the inter-factional fighting, everybody in Afghanistan is hungry - everybody needs help. The aid agencies need to push in as much help as they possibly can as quickly as they can because the situation throughout Afghanistan is just going to deteriorate.

Newshost:
Primary class 1, Skagarak Primary and Middle School, Sandefjord, Norway: Have you seen any of the bombings killing civilians? Have you seen what's going on there? What do the people in Afghanistan need?

Hermione Youngs:
No I haven't seen any of the bombings or any of the destruction. I left on the 6th October and since then have been in Pakistan working on co-ordinating more emergency materials.

What do the people of Afghanistan need at the moment - they need peace and they need a calmer lifestyle. But emergency-wise, they need food, they need winter support, they need clothing, shoes, blankets. The children need medical support, they need supplementary food because there isn't enough food anyway in Afghanistan. They need the support of the children throughout the world.

Newshost:
It seems reading between the lines of this question, that these young people of Skagarak are saying is there any way that we can help.

Hermione Youngs:
What they can do to help is, unfortunately, nothing directly. You can't send things because it's impossible to get things into Afghanistan by post or any other way. If they can help support UNICEF in Norway then the aid will certainly get through to the children. Giving money at the moment is the best way because that's the quickest way we can actually utilise the funds. We can buy emergency materials in Pakistan, in Iran, in Tadjikistan and facilitate getting things in quickly. Also the UNICEF and the other agencies do have key points in Europe where large purchasing can be done. In UNICEF it's Copenhagen - then they can airlift materials directly out to the closest point to Afghanistan.

Newshost:
Hoho, Shanghai, China: What is the situation of the Afghan civilian population? What effect have the air strikes had on them?

Hermione Youngs:
The Afghan population are absolutely desperate. They are already living on a day-to-day basis looking for food, looking for fuel, looking for how to support themselves. There is no infrastructure in Afghanistan - people live daily. Many, many people in Afghanistan don't even know where America is. They don't know what has happened and they don't why this is happening to their country. They are finding it very difficult to try and equate what is happening to their daily life and they are very confused and frightened.

The children don't have any concept of what is happening in the rest of world. They lead very difficult lives. They start collecting fuel as soon as they are able to walk - they start helping their mothers look for food very, very quickly. They have a very hard life and at the moment they are hungry and they are frightened.

Newshost:
Kate Patton, Montclair, USA How many people have already died, and how many will suffer and die of hunger, as a result the US attacks?

Hermione Youngs:
UNICEF work primarily with women and children and our priority at the moment is trying to ensure that as many children as possible survive the next few months. We have already a generation of children who have had no natural home life, who have no happiness, who have no fixed education. Most of the children you talk to in Afghanistan could tell you stories of their fathers being killed in war, they can tell you about relatives who have been injured in mine accidents, they'd tell you about brothers and sisters who have died. They don't have normal happy lives.

Newshost:
A tragic place all round. There is almost not a good thing you can say about the place.

Hermione Youngs:
Except the people are wonderful and they need all our help and all our support. They are very resilient and they don't deserve anything that is happening to them at the moment.

Newshost:
Kristian, Leeds UK: Are the US airdrops of food really helping the situation or are they nothing more than a useless PR exercise that do more harm than good?

Hermione Youngs:
I have fairly strong personal views on this and I don't mind expressing my personal views. The Afghans are dignified, hospitable people. I don't think it is dignified to throw food at people from an aeroplane.

The food comes in yellow bags. It is American food and it is not the food they would normally eat. They are being attacked by America then they are being given food. They actually think the food is poisoned. The food is dropped in 30 Kg. canisters - is it a bomb, is it food? The food is dropped indiscriminately. Afghanistan is one of the most mined countries in the world. We don't know but we have heard rumours that the food has been dropped into minefields. Who do the Afghans send into the minefields to collect the food? I wouldn't send a child - I wouldn't send an adult. So personally, I don't think it's a good idea.

Newshost:
Do you think it's as cynical as a public relations exercise? Do you regard it as American PR?

Hermione Youngs:
Personally, yes.

Newshost:
Dr A Esteki, UK: There are conflicting reports regarding the food supply to Afghans before the winter snow starts. Is the current supply by the United Nations enough for the Afghans to cope during the winter months?

Hermione Youngs:
Because of the consequences of what has been happening in the last few weeks, more people are on the move - they are moving from their own areas - they are moving from perhaps where it was possible to receive food. So we have a population that is not settled - it is moving and we need to take the food to them. If there was food supplies in situ then perhaps it would have been possible but there is that much movement now. There isn't enough food inside Afghanistan now to feed people - we do need more food to go in.

Newshost:
When is your next convoy going in?

Hermione Youngs:
I hope there is a convoy going in today but I haven't had it confirmed yet. But that will not give enough support for the winter months - we need to take in as much as we can, as do the other agencies. Not only the UN agencies but the international aid agencies are all trying to get supplies in. We don't know how bad the winter is going to be. Winter in Afghanistan can last from November through to May. We don't know how many people are going to need support through those months. We are going to need as much aid into Afghanistan as we can get, very, very quickly in the near future.

Newshost:
Orlando, Baku, Azerbaijan: What do common people in Afghanistan think about the Taleban rulers and the Americans? Who do they blame for their problems?

Hermione Youngs:
That's a good question. The guy in the compound surviving day to day - I don't think identifies with either - they think that everybody is against them at the moment. They feel the whole world is against them at the moment. Certainly the Taleban have caused problems in the past for them but they always hoped that the West would come and help them and now they see the West is not helping them. I think they just feel that nobody wants to help them and they are at the bottom of a deep black hole and they can't see a way out of it. I don't think they actually blame anyone in particular.

Newshost:
So many weeks on after the September 11th attacks, do the people have an inkling of what happened in America?

Hermione Youngs:
They still don't fully understand what has actually happened and why it has happened. They feel they are being punished for something but they don't understand why and they are very, very frightened. Their children too are very, very frightened and how these children are going to recover I don't honestly know, if they will ever recover from what is happening to them at the moment.

Newshost:
C Killick, Kenilworth, England: What keeps your spirits up when you see people suffering so much?

Hermione Youngs:
The Afghans - they are wonderful people - they are very resilient, they are very supportive. They want their children to have normal, happy lives and they support me to support them.