Eyewitness to Afghanistan

Photos were taken by Haroon Qureshi on November 20, 2001. Photographic images may not be forwarded or reprinted.
Photos (C) by Ahmad Qureshi Haroon
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It may not be edited or copied in part.
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An Afghan girl holding a piece of dry hardened nan (bread)
which had been rationed. Dipping the bread in water
to soften for eating causes the spread of disease.
A sign of skin disease can be seen on her cheeks.

On November 20, 2001 Haroon Qureshi, a director at Otsuka
Mosque in Tokyo, traveled from Pakistan to Afghanistan,
where the U.S.-led airstrikes are still continuing.

When I visited Torkham, a border town near Pakistan, I saw a man and boy, who had been brought to a hospital several hours earlier by an ambulance operated by the EDHI Trust (an NGO). The man was Dr. Shahab-u-Din and the boy was his son. Dr. Shahab-u-Din used to live in Kabul with his six sons, three daughters and his wife. His house was destroyed by the U.S. bombing and his entire family with the exception of his six-year-old son, who barely survived, was killed.

Dr. Shahab-u-Din who was seriously wounded passed out not from being wounded but because of the great emotional trauma he had suffered. His six-year-old son has yet to be informed of the deaths of the other family members.

So many houses of so many ordinary people were bombed and destroyed. And so many lives were taken.
Medical facilities in Afghanistan are quickly losing their ability to function.
They don't have anesthetics for those who are injured by the bombs. I saw doctors operating on their patients who were writhing in pain, with their bodies bound by ropes. For those whose injury is not too serious, doctors can still tie the patients' bodies down and perform an operation. But doctors are unable to operate in this way on those who have been seriously injured. They can do nothing but watch these patients die.

At the request of a hospital in Kabul, I made an arrangement with a Pakistani company selling anesthetics to donate some. I delivered the anesthetics to the hospital and so they can use them there now, but other hospitals still don't have any.

It was not just anesthetics that were lacking. There were no bags for blood transfusion or hypodermic needles either. Even if there were many people who were willing to give blood, they aren't equipped to perform blood transfusions and again many more lives are lost.

Every day a number of women suffering from abdominal pain come to Dr. Jamilah, one of the few female doctors in the Kandahar area. These women walk miles and miles over the mountains to see her.

These women said that they had been eating stones to fill their empty stomachs. They had been eating grass as well. Many people starve to death. The situation is extremely critical in mountainous regions. International aid organizations and NGOs have not provided adequate support. It seems that the WFP's optimistic view on winning the race against hunger and cold with aid in Afghanistan (*) has been proven wrong.

Shamshatoo refugee camp located near Peshawar is an older camp. It is divided into two camps and the part that just opened a year ago is called Shamshatoo 2 or New Shamshatoo camp. Since October 2001 the tide of refugees has been rapidly rising. Many of the refugees came here fleeing from the U.S. bombing. They have not yet been designated as refugees.

Refugees can receive relief from aid agencies including the UN only after they have been registered as refugees. Once they are registered, they can receive flour, oil and red beans, which are distributed to each household. But those who left their homes fleeing from the bombing receive nothing. They share their scarce food and supplies with their neighbors. They help each other, trying to survive. I saw two families sharing one slice of nan bread. Still many die from hunger and the severe cold.

The entire camp is covered with numerous makeshift tents
which were pieced together merely with cloth placed over a stick.
People have nothing to put over the freezing ground.

From Quetta I crossed the border and visited a camp in a town called Spin Boldak. The population at the camp was over 100,000. The U.N. does not recognize these people as refugees since they are still in Afghanistan. And so they are not eligible to receive any relief. Some lucky ones were living in a tent provided by an NGO. But many others were living under makeshift tents they pieced together merely with cloth placed over a stick. They had nothing to put over the ground and many families had to sleep directly on the freezing ground, huddling close together.

At every camp in Afghanistan and the surrounding countries I visited, I was always told that people were lacking so many supplies. Some told me that they needed gas masks. Doctors also pleaded that they needed gas masks.

The doctors said that the U.S. was using chemical weapons. They were certain about this because of the symptoms they had observed in many of their patients. But this fact has neither been admitted by the U.S. nor has it drawn any media attention.

And neither is the fact that the lives of more than 10 million people, more than half of the total population of Afghanistan, are still being threatened by hunger and cold.

Qureshi left for Afghanistan on January 21, 2002 to distribute emergency aid supplies such as clothes and blankets which were collected through Otsuka Masjid in response to the call by the JIT (Japan Islamic Trust) to help Afghan refugees and internally displaced persons in Afghanistan.

"This project is really an emergency measure," says Qureshi. "People are dying one after another from hunger and cold. Sending clothes is not too difficult, we want them to keep warm at least, just to stay alive." Otsuka Mosque is now calling for donation of clothes for the third time.

Contributions are also accepted through postal money transfer or bank transfer. Your contributions will be used to purchase medical supplies, food, blankets and other necessary supplies locally.

Send your contributions to: JIT FUND FOR AFGHAN MUHAJRIN

By postal transfer:
Japan's Postal Account No. 00150-9-98307
By bank transfer:
Tokyo Mitsubishi Bank Otsuka Branch (Branch Number 171),

Mr.Qureshi is calling for information about the use of biological/chemical weapons by the U.S.
Please send information to backup21@anet.ne.jp.