Cash shortage threatens Afghan aid

The return of refugees is under threat

By Emma Jane Kirby BBC correspondent in Geneva

Aid agencies have warned they are planning to cut back their operations in Afghanistan because international funding has dried up.

The International Office for Migration (IOM) says it has just 48 hours before it has to stop many of its operations and the World Food Programme claims that it has already had to cut back rations to returnees in Kandahar and eastern Afghanistan.

There's nine million people in Afghanistan who depend on food aid to survive - and right now we don't have enough money

Christian Berthiaume
World Food Programme

The agencies have been warning that it was coming for sometime, but now their funding deficit is being felt on the ground.

The IOM has already had to scale back transportation programmes in north and western Afghanistan.

Unless it receives more money by Thursday, it says it is likely to have to stop repatriating refugees from Iran, meaning the 2,500 people who are coming back each day, will now have no means of getting home.

The World Food Programme says its situation is critical.

With a month to go before the July harvest and with winter stocks exhausted, the organisation is looking at a food shortage of more than 50,000 tonnes.

Bad timing

Already the school feeding programme in Mazar-e-Sharif has been cut back dramatically. Two hundred and twenty thousand children had receiving meals at school - now just 50,000 are benefiting.

The World Food Programme has already made cut backs

"There's nine million people in Afghanistan who depend on food aid to survive. And right now we don't have enough money," says Christian Berthiaume from the World Food Programme.

"We have to stop, or reduce, some of our programmes like food for refugees coming back home, for displaced people, for people suffering from drought, also for school feeding.

"The situation is bad because it is the worst time of the year for those people."

The World Food Programme says a greater number than expected of refugees returning to Afghanistan has stretched its budget to the limit.

It asked for $285m to cover its aid projects but, so far, has received less than half of that amount.