(Click To Enlarge)(Photo from Medecins Sans Frontieres)
Call For Afghan 'Berlin Airlift' -- BBC News
The international community has been urged to stage an emergency relief operation to prevent Afghanistan falling victim to a devastating famine.
The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a UK military think tank, makes its warning in a briefing paper.
It says food shortages now represented a greater threat to Afghanistan than the Taliban insurgency.
It wants a similar but smaller repeat of the Berlin Airlift during the Soviet blockade of west Berlin in 1948.
The briefing paper said the Afghan population will turn increasingly to the international forces in the country for help once winter sets in.
The United Nations World Food Programme estimates the country will need 95,000 tonnes food aid by February.
The combination of light spring rains, a summer drought, poor irrigation, low crop yields and rising world food prices means there are millions of Afghans possibly facing famine.
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My Comment: I mentioned a few months ago that this was becoming a strong possibility. Taliban attacks, government corruption, the targeting of aid workers, the growing of opium instead of food crops, a drought in much of the country, roten farming techniques, the expulsion of thousands of Afghan refugees from Pakistan .... we now have a perfect storm for a famine.
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