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.…
Posted By: Erica We arrived in Herat today — the largest city in Western region of Afghanistan, not far from the Iranian border — where we met with the Regional Command West (RCWest), the regional headquarters for ISAF. RCWest has been trying to use money from the Post-Operations Humanitarian Relief Fund [read our recent press…
Posted By: Rebecca A., working with CIVIC’s Erica in Afghanistan Karim, sits in his salon fingering photographs of his son, Abdul. The love-worn pictures show a striking 18-year-old, his arms thrown around the shoulders of friends, both Afghan and U.S. military. On February 27, 2007, the day of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney’s visit to…
Posted By: Marla B. During the 2006 war nearly all businesses in the north of Israel closed. Many Israelis fled their homes here, heading south staying with friends, family and even occasionally strangers willing to take them in. In Kiryat Shmona, a town close to the Lebanese boarder, this man stayed behind and tended to…
Posted By: Marla B. Perched on a hilltop overlooking a lush valley on the other side of which is Isreal, Bint Jbeil was considered a ‘Hizbollah stronghold’ during the 2006 war. Two major battles took place there. The first began early in the morning on July 25, 2006 with heavy gun volleys between the Israeli…
Posted By: Marla B. Haifa’s train depot was the scene of the deadliest attack in Israel during the 2006 war with Hizbollah. On July 16, shortly after nine in the morning missiles rained down on the city. One directly struck the train depot killing eight workers inside. We visited the train depot in the hopes…
Posted By: Marla B. On a Thursday morning we left Tyre and traveled south to visit with more survivors and survey some of the other small towns. The first one we came to was Qana. Lebanese Christians believe this is where Jesus performed his first miracle, turning water to wine. Qana also has a long,…