World Concern Meeting USAID in Washington D.C. Regarding Relief in Northern Afghanistan

World Concern
Monday, 5 November 2001

SEATTLE – World Concern Relief Director Kelly Miller, who has been traveling in northern Afghanistan and Tajikistan for the past few weeks, meets today in Washington DC with the USAID offices of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) and Food for Peace. Miller will be updating USAID on the current situation in northeast Afghanistan and new developments regarding the availability of food aid in Tajikistan. He will also be urging additional support for relief efforts in the Takhar region.

Miller flew from Seattle to Dushanbe, Tajikistan on October 15. There he met with partners from Central Asia Development Agency (CADA), Arizona-based Food for the Hungry and Oregon-based Northwest Medical Teams to strategize how best to expand relief efforts in northern Afghanistan. The team then traveled to camps near Dasht-e Qal'eh, Afghanistan, a city where the partners have established a base of operation for the distribution of supplies.

Video sent back to Seattle last week of Miller's trip displayed newly assembled camps. Makeshift homes consisted of holes dug in the ground covered by tarps and blankets strung up on poles. Children had no shoes; their clothes were in tatters. In one recently discovered camp, the mortality rate for children under two years of age was already nearly 100%. World Concern and its partners are racing to get emergency aid to these families as winter approaches.

Seattle-based World Concern has been working in Afghanistan for 20 years and in Tajikistan, partnering with CADA, for almost four. In the past year alone, World Concern has shipped over a million dollars worth of clothing, shoes and medical supplies to the region, much of which is now positioned on the border for distribution to families in northern Afghanistan. The most immediate need now is food aid: $35.00 will feed a family of five for a month. Blankets and shelter materials will also be distributed, and partner Northwest Medical Teams will send the first team of medical professionals late next week.

For more information, or to contact World Concern, see their website at: www.worldconcern.org