Posted By: Rebecca W., working with CIVIC’s Erica in Afghanistan Ahmed Sultani is a small 70-year old man with a soft-spoken voice and lines etched deeply into his tanned face. On July 22, 2006, his 18-year old son, Zalmai, was killed by a suicide bomber who had been targeting Canadian troops in the centre of…
Posted By: Rebecca W., working with CIVIC’s Erica Afghanistan [Written 7/20/08] I went this morning to the Kandahar IOM/ACAP office (ACAP is the program created by the United States to help war victims and IOM is the agency that implements it across the country). I met the staff and talked with one field officer who travels around…
Posted By: Rebecca W., working with CIVIC’s Erica in Afghanistan [Written 7/19/08] Driving from Kandahar Air Field into the city, the difficult security situation in Kandahar and the severe challenges facing civilians become immediately apparent. Squashed in the back of an armored vehicle and wearing a bullet-proof vest, I saw the wreckage caused by a…
Posted By: Rebecca W., working with CIVIC’s Erica in Afghanistan [Written 7/19/08] I arrived in Kandahar this morning. My first stop was Kandahar Air Field (KAF) where I met with a government official who accompanies military forces into remote parts of the southern provinces and organizes stabilization projects. His stories were nothing short of shocking.…
Posted By: Rebecca A., working with CIVIC’s Erica in Afghanistan I am in Jalalabad now, a city in the Eastern part of Afghanistan a few hours from the border with Pakistan. US forces are stationed here, and recently came under heavy criticism for an air attack on a wedding party that killed 23 civilians in…
Posted By: Rebecca W., working with CIVIC’s Erica in Afghanistan Read Part 1, by Erica, on Kabul… KANDAHAR – On a recent trip to Kandahar, I heard similar stories about the “guessing approach” that aid agencies are forced to adopt in their efforts to assist Battle-Displaced Persons (BDPs). Access to information is a problem that…
Posted By: Sarah Afghans are dying from bombs, missiles, explosive devices, police fire, beheadings, domestic violence… and the list goes on. The situation for them is becoming untenable. This, after many decades of war has ripped through their land. Over and over we’ve heard calls from President Karzai to stop the needless violence. In the…
Posted By: Erica Below is the first of two separate reports on the information vacuum that exists when assessing the need for humanitarian aid to battle-displaced persons. Both my report and the future report form Rebecca, our guest blogger, highlight the difficulty of properly assessing, delivering and evaluating aid to those harmed by conflict. KABUL…
Posted By: Rebecca A., working with CIVIC’s Erica in Afghanistan Read Part 1… Fortunately for Abdul’s family, the family was identified by the Afghan Civilian Assistance Program (ACAP). The program paid for the younger brother to have training in woodworking and assisted him in setting up his own woodworking shop that could support the family.…