U.S. donates wheat to drought-stricken Afghanistan

A World Food Programme (WFP) announcement in Islamabad said the wheat would feed 2.3 million famine-threatened Afghans. Washington is unhappy with the radical islamic Taliban rulers of Afghanistan over the terrorism issue but has donated 95,000 tons of wheat, worth more than 30 million dollars, to help feed Afghans.

"WFP is doing its best to prevent mass migration of hungry Afghans to the neighbouring countries, specially Pakistan and Iran," said WFP regional manager Mike Sackett. WFP would feed 51,000 new Afghan refugees who arrived in Pakistan in recent weeks. The country has already been burdened with about 1.3 million Afghan refugees.

Since the beginning of the year, WFP has distributed about 110,000 tons of food to 2.35 million destitute Afghans, almost twice the amount distributed last year. WFP estimates that up to 12 million Afghans are affected by the drought, more than one-fourth of them severely.

About 85 per cent of Afghanistan estimated 21.9 million people are directly dependent on agriculture. Absence of rain destroyed almost all the rain-fed crops and decimated livestock in the country, said the international humanitarian food aid agency. Afghanistan needs about 4.1 million tons of cereals a year to meet domestic consumption.

(la/dpa)