The countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Sunday, December 19, promised to work with the UN to unlock hundreds of millions of dollars in Afghan assets and to set up a donation fund to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. The country is in “an absolute emergency”, declared on franceinfo Eric Cheysson, president of La Chaîne de l’Espoir, former head of the vascular and thoracic surgery department at the René-Dubos hospital in Pontoise.
franceinfo: What is the situation there?
Eric Cheysson: It is an absolute emergency. The World Food Program speaks of the worst humanitarian crisis on earth. The mind-blowing numbers. The economic and financial sanctions that have been decided will kill many more than the last 10 years of war and the Taliban regime. A million children are at risk of starvation.
Is humanitarian aid still arriving?
She absolutely no longer arrives. The Quai d’Orsay crisis center sent us a plane a few days ago with 20 tons of drugs. Our hospital continues to operate, we still have 900 employees who are there, 85 have left, in particular doctors with skills that we had spent 15 years teaching them.
Everything is a problem, for electricity, fuel, medicines, access for women and also access for patients. I give a cry of alarm.
Eric Cheyssonto franceinfo
Let’s do it quickly, winter is here in two weeks and it is already too late. We have to take action everywhere, from the point of view of food, safety and health. The urgency is absolute.
Are children the first to be affected?
Of course and we know it well at the French hospital in Kabul since it is a mother-child hospital. We are seeing cases of acute undernutrition, the word famine is a reality. We see children with terrible undernutrition, dehydration. The death rates on these children are appalling. It starts to get -8 ° C at night and there is no more heating, no fuel, no electricity, no more banking system. The situation was already dire before the Taliban arrived on August 15
What means do you have?
Every day we try to find solutions. There is no more bank liquidity, so how do you pay staff? They want to come, but they have to eat, they have a family. We do extremely complex interventions and it is not possible to shut down the generators. They run on fuel oil and it is extremely difficult to find. We multiply the problems each time, everything is complicated and difficult. The female staff are terrified, we are no longer sending missions.
Is this situation only due to the return of the Taliban?
No, it would be wrong to say that. Of course there is a major worsening, but we were already in an acute crisis situation due to the drought, the Covid. There was the security situation, with Daesh. Four hospitals were attacked with massacres, several dozen injured. There is fear everywhere.