Afghanistan kids freezing to death
KABUL, Afghanistan – Freezing temperatures and heavy snow have killed at least 180 children during Afghanistan’s coldest winter in years, the health minister said Tuesday, amid warnings that the final toll could reach the thousands.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said Tuesday that 260 people have perished from the freeze that began early last month and has left many remote regions snowbound.
The government has not yet given an estimate of nationwide casualties.
In Zabul, a southeastern province haunted by Taliban militants, Gov. Khan Mohammed Husseini told The Associated Press on Monday that 135 people had died from cold, hunger and disease. However, two of them had been attacked by wolves.
Health Minister Mohammed Amin Fatemi told AP that in other parts of Afghanistan, the toll among children alone has risen to 180, almost half of them in the Hindu Kush province of Ghor where scores of villages have been cut off by snow. Avalanches have killed another 29 people this year, Fatemi said.
On Monday, Canada’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Christopher Alexander, said several thousand people could die in the cold snap, highlighting the continued poverty of Afghans and the weakness of their government three years after the Taliban’s ouster by a U.S.-led invasion.
But Fatemi said forecasts by relief groups that the death toll could top 1,000 were alarmist.
The U.S. military, the United Nations and aid groups are trying to bring relief to isolated communities.
On Monday, three military helicopters dropped eight tons of wheat, cooking oil and beans next to a village of Khaki Afghan in Zabul province.
Hundreds of villagers cowered in the swirling snow for the badly needed supplies as about 20 U.S. troops jumped from the hovering helicopters to stand guard as they were unloaded.
Bad weather is also suspected as the cause of the Feb. 4 crash of a Boeing 737 which hit a frozen peak east of Kabul during a snowstorm, killing all 108 people on board.
Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammed Zaher Azimi said Tuesday that 46 bodies – including those of three children – had been recovered from the remote crash site so far.
Medical teams reinforced by experts from Italy have identified remains of eight victims, which would soon be handed over to relatives, Azimi said. It was unclear whether the remains were those of any of the more than 20 foreigners on board.
American investigators have joined the Afghan effort to find out the reason for the crash, the worst in Afghan aviation history. The plane’s data recorder has been retrieved, but the voice recorder is still missing.