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	All parties in Afghanistan must allow safe passage of vital food assistance by ICRC & agencies Afghanistan   Feb 2010 (UN News)   Attacks halt UN food agency’s deliveries in north-western Afghanistan - WFP distributes food to an average 3.7 million Afghan people yearly, primarily in remote, rural areas.   The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has temporarily suspended deliveries in north-western Afghanistan after a convoy was attacked over the weekend, resulting in the loss of over 100 metric tons of food aid.   A 19-truck convoy was stopped for the night in the Sang Atash area of Badghis province on 30 January when it was attacked.   Seven vehicles and the food supplies they were carrying were destroyed, while two other vehicles were damaged, although some of the food they were transporting was salvaged.   Challiss McDonough, WFP public information officer for Afghanistan, said that one truck driver is being treated for injuries, while one driver and his truck are currently unaccounted for. The agency, she said, has temporarily halted food deliveries to the area while the security situation is being evaluated.   “WFP calls on all parties in Afghanistan to allow safe passage of vital food assistance intended to support the neediest Afghans,” Ms. McDonough said.   The agency has been working continuously in the country since 1963 and is active in all 34 of its provinces. It has identified insecurity, drought, floods and low education levels as being among the factors exacerbating food insecurity in Afghanistan.   26-01-2010   Afghanistan: war’s heavy toll on civilians. (ICRC)   "The intensification of the conflict urgently demands enhanced precautions by all parties – the Afghan national security forces, the international military forces and the armed opposition," said Jacques de Maio, the ICRC"s head of operations for South Asia. "More must be done to minimize the war"s impact on civilians not only in combat zones, where fighters and civilians must be distinguished at all times, but also far from the battlefield – even there, respect and security for medical and health workers must be restored."   At Mirwais Hospital in Kandahar, the only referral hospital for some 3.5 million people, between 500 and 700 war-related operations are now being performed each month by ICRC and local surgeons. "And they are the lucky ones: many other wounded and sick people simply do not have access to any treatment," said Reto Stocker, head of the ICRC delegation in Kabul. "Medical facilities and first-aid posts are often not spared the effects of the fighting – occasionally, they are even directly targeted. When ambulances are blocked and sometimes shot at, it becomes impossible to evacuate casualties. Medical workers venturing into remote areas do so at the risk of their lives."   International humanitarian law stipulates that the sick and wounded – whether they be civilians or fighters, regardless of which side they are on – must be cared for with the least possible delay and must not be subject to any form of discrimination. The parties to the conflict must at all times respect and protect medical personnel, vehicles and facilities, and must facilitate the rapid passage of medical assistance to those in need.   The ICRC has been working in Afghanistan since 1979 and currently employs 1,600 staff throughout the country. Visit the related web page
	Orphaned, Raped and Ignored by Nicholas Kristof New York Times Congo   January 30, 2010   The barbaric civil war being waged in the eastern Congo is the most lethal conflict since World War II and has claimed at least 30 times as many lives as the Haiti earthquake.   Yet no humanitarian crisis generates so little attention per million corpses, or such a pathetic international response.   That’s why I’m here in the lovely, lush and threatening hills west of Lake Kivu, where militias rape, mutilate and kill civilians with a savagery that is almost incomprehensible. I’m talking to a 9-year-old girl, Chance Tombola, an orphan whose eyes are luminous with fear.   For Chance, the war arrived one evening last May when armed soldiers from an extremist Hutu militia — remnants of those who committed the Rwandan genocide — burst into her home. They killed her parents in front of her. Chance ran away, but the soldiers seized her two sisters, ages 6 and 12, and carried them away into the forest, presumably to be turned into “wives” of soldiers. No one has seen Chance’s sisters since.   Chance moved in with her aunt and uncle and their two teenage daughters. Two months later, the same militia invaded the aunt’s house and held everyone at gunpoint. Chance says she recognized some of the soldiers as the same ones who had killed her parents.   This time, no one could escape. The soldiers first shot her uncle, and then, as the terrified family members sobbed, they pulled out a large knife.   “They sliced his belly so that the intestines fell out,” said his widow, Jeanne Birengenyi, 34, Chance’s aunt. “Then they cut his heart out and showed it to me.” The soldiers continued to mutilate the body, while others began to rape Jeanne.   “One takes a leg, one takes the other leg,” Jeanne said dully. “Others grab the arms while one just starts raping. They don’t care if children are watching.”   Chance added softly: “There were six who raped her. One raped me, too.”   The soldiers left Jeanne and Chance, tightly tied up, and marched off into the forest with Jeanne’s two daughters as prisoners. One daughter is 14, the other 16, and they have not been heard from since. “They kill, they rape, burn houses and take people’s belongings,” Jeanne said. “When they come with their guns, it’s as if they have a project to eliminate the local population.”   A peer-reviewed study found that 5.4 million people had already died in this war as of April 2007, and hundreds of thousands more have died as the situation has deteriorated since then. A catastrophically planned military offensive last year, backed by the governments of Congo and Rwanda as well as the United Nations force here, made some headway against Hutu militias but also led to increased predation on civilians from all sides.   Human Rights Watch estimates that for every Hutu fighter sent back to Rwanda last year, at least seven women were raped and 900 people forced to flee for their lives. “From a human rights perspective, the operation has been catastrophic,” concluded Philip Alston, a senior United Nations investigator.   This is a pointless war — now a dozen years old — driven by warlords, greed for minerals, ethnic tensions and complete impunity. While there is plenty of fault to go around, Rwanda has long played a particularly troubling role in many ways, including support for one of the militias. Rwanda’s government is dazzlingly successful at home, but next door in Congo, it appears complicit in war crimes.   Jeanne and Chance contracted sexually transmitted diseases. Like other survivors in areas that are accessible, they receive help from the International Rescue Committee, but Chance still suffers pain when she urinates.   Counselors say that most raped women are rejected by their husbands, and raped girls like Chance have difficulty marrying. In an area west of Lake Kivu where attacks are continuing, I met Saleh Bulondo, a newly homeless young man who was educated and spoke a little English. I asked him if he would still marry his girlfriend if she were raped. “Never,” he said. “I will abandon her.”   A girl here normally fetches a bride price (a reverse dowry, paid by the husband’s family) when she marries. A village chief told me that a typical price would be 20 goats — but if the girl has been raped, two goats. At most.   Thus it takes astonishing courage for Jeanne and Chance to tell their stories (including in a video posted with the on-line version of this column). I’ll be reporting more from eastern Congo in the coming days, hoping that the fortitude of survivors like them can inspire world leaders to step forward to stop this slaughter. It’s time to show the same compassion toward Congo that we have toward Haiti.   * Below is a link to the International Rescue Committee feature page on their work in the Congo. Visit the related web page
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