Médecins Sans Frontières

Unique Identifier Code / URN MSF46574

Date taken / Date Recorded 01/09/2002 12:00 AM

Country Afghanistan

Commissioning section MSF-GERMANY

Photographer / videographer / producer Sebastian Bolesch

Copyright Sebastian Bolesch

Usage Rights (MSF) Internal Use Only

Formal Consent Copy available no

Editor's rating ★★★★ (E)

Maximum Size 2480px × 1616px 3.10 MB

Additional Information / Shotlist Diderik van Halsema has been the coordinator of MSF's relief projects in and around Kandahar, Afghanistan, since May 2002. MSF is currently working in 13 of Afghanistan's 32 provinces with 93 international volunteers and 1273 national staff. October 07 2002.
'Sand devils' they call them. Small whirlwinds that sweep across the plain, sucking the sand into twenty-meter-high spirals and blowing it away. Coupled with a strong wind, they are a real source of hardship to Afghans living in Zhare Dasht - which is not just the name of the region but also of a new accommodation for 60,000 Afghans due to be transferred here from the Pakistan-Afghan border by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR).
'Zhare Dasht' is Pashtun for 'Yellow Desert'. The area lies in the Sanzari district, over an hour's drive to the west of Kandahar in the south of Afghanistan. Since mid-August this has been the operational area for the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) team based in Kandahar.
MSF has been active in this region since 1995. Over the years, various immunization programs have been carried out as well as projects to combat malnutrition and prevent outbreaks of cholera, malaria, meningitis, typhoid, measles, dysentery, and other contagious diseases. This is a difficult logistical environment because of its isolation; a difficult cultural environment because of the conservatism; and a difficult political environment because of the years of Taliban domination. Working from Kandahar, the Taliban took control of almost the whole of Afghanistan until they were driven out by US-backed Northern Alliance forces at the end of 2001.
In October 2001 the project in Kandahar came to a standstill when the Taliban commandeered MSF's office. The MSF international staff had already been evacuated but without an office, the national staff was forced to stop their work as well. After the Taliban was ousted and a caretaker government was installed in Afghanistan, the team restarted the project. The office was restored to normal, needed medical supplies were replenished and, in the months that followed MSF assessed the need for new interventions.
During the past two decades of fighting, hundreds of thousands of Afghans had taken to the road; not only internally, but also in neighboring Iran and Pakistan, which had taken in millions of Afghan refugees since the Soviet invasion in the early eighties. Now a new group of Afghans were on the move: fleeing the bombing and the inevitable ethnic tensions, and also the drought in the south. A multi-year drought has led to many health and economic problems that have been consistently under-addressed by the media.

80.jpg

80.jpg