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U.S. Aid Helps Avert Famine in Afghanistan
Friday, January 4, 2002
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON -- AFIS
U.S. and U.N. efforts in Afghanistan appear to have averted starvation in the country, U.S. State Department officials said Jan. 3.

Aid organizations have moved more than 200,000 tons of food into Afghanistan since Oct. 1, according to U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Andrew Natsios and Alan Kreczko, the acting assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.

"Of that … 200,000 tons, 64 percent of it came from the United States," Natsios said. "So … almost two-thirds of the food that went in came from America."

Natsios forecast earlier that more than 1.5 million Afghans faced starvation unless help could flow into the war-torn country.

DoD played a major role in averting a humanitarian disaster even as the attack against Taliban and Al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan was fully engaged. DoD dropped 2.2 million humanitarian daily rations from Oct. 7 to Dec. 13, said Mike McNerney, a foreign affairs specialist with DoD's Humanitarian Affairs office. Those dates covered the startup of operations against the terrorists and when DoD ended the "flutter drop" of the rations.
(More: DoD News Source)
2002 © The United States Department of Defense.

Dan