One Child Dies Every Two Minutes in Afghanistan

[tekisui]

Source: uruknet

Children in Afghanistan are more likely to die before the age of five than children anywhere else in the world, according to Save the Children.

At the current appalling rate, one child dies every two minutes in the violence-wracked nation.

The study shows that last year was also the deadliest for Afghan children since the fall of the Taliban.

More than 1,050 were killed in suicide attacks, air strikes, explosions and crossfire, according to latest figures.

Save the Children insists the true scale of the humanitarian crisis facing the country remains hidden because of the focus on the conflict.

It says: "The international community needs to ensure families across the country - not just those living in the conflict zones - are able to access the clean water, nutritious food and healthcare they need to keep their children alive."

Despite massive medical breakthroughs across the globe a quarter of all children born in Afghanistan die before the age of five.

Meanwhile there has been virtually no improvement in the child mortality rate in the past twenty years.

Nearly 60 per cent of children are malnourished and will not recover from the physical and mental damage done by not having nutritious food early in life.

And in some rural areas 92% of girls aren't able to go to school.

more: http://www.uruknet.info/index.php?p=m63920&hd=&size=1&l=e

[sandnsea]

1. Pennies For Peace

Nobody does better work for that region than Greg Mortenson. Those people have been suffering for decades and the children weren't helped by the Taliban or the Mujahideen or any other group of warlords so don't kid yourself.

http://www.penniesforpeace.org/

[tekisui]

6. I never made that claim.

But, a new and expanding war doesn't help them either.

[aquart]

9. How they die matters?

Because those kids are going to die whether we kill them, they kill them, disease kills them, starvation kills them...

We need to get out of Afghanistan to save OURSELVES, not them. The lives this war is making a difference in are OUR lives. We don't have the money to save OUR children because of this costly debacle.

[NOLALady]

11. Funny how that works.

We are killing their children with money we could use to save our children.

[aquart]

24. Makes no sense at all, does it?

WTF did they ever do to us? Sheltered some criminals? What country hasn't?

We invaded them for the Caspian Basin oil and any official who says different is incompetent or lying but most likely both because the beneficiary of that oil is going to be CHINA.

[Mari333]

2. and

Save the Children also said that the current UK and NATO approach in Afghanistan is "blurring the lines" between military and humanitarian objectives.

Mr Watt adds: "Funding soldiers to carry out humanitarian work such as rebuilding schools threatens the impartiality of aid agencies working on the ground and makes it much more dangerous for us to operate in the country.

"It could also turn hospitals or schools rebuilt with military help into targets and put children's lives at risk.

"It is clear that soldiers involved in the conflict in Afghanistan should not be carrying out sensitive and complex humanitarian work with vulnerable communities. It is only through impartial aid organisations such as Save the Children that essential rebuilding can be done safely and successfully."


hey obama , do you get it yet?????

[patrice]

14. I fear that soldiers in their humanitarian role are supposed to justify soldiers in their In-humanit

arian roles.

Afterall, the humanitarian soldier role would not even be there if it weren't for the In-humanitarian one.

I think the message is that we are supposed to feel all okay about what we are doing, because some soldiers did something (that Really was) nice. I do not deny that the recipient of any help should have received the help, nor that things are better in some way because of the help, but NONE of that in any way mitigates in the slightest degree the WRONG of War and Killing. They are just as evil as if the humanitarian stuff had never happened.

I VERY much dislike having these two roles mixed, because I believe the positive role makes the negative role more likely/acceptable and not vice versa.

[stray cat]

3. And worldwide every 30 seconds from Malaria

[tekisui]

7. I guess a congratulations is in order of Afghanistans excellent death rate?

You and you non-sequiturs are tired and old. I see you still haven't figured out how to access the "My DU" function. Ever the post-and-runner.

[Robb]

4. Deadliest "since the fall of the Taliban"?

I looked, but couldn't find on STC's website: was it more deadly pre-2001? Or do they simply not have data?

[tekisui]

5. I would like to know that, too.

[aquart]

8. No change in child mortality in 20 years.

And did children flourish before the Russians went in? What was the child mortality rate 100 years ago? 1000?

We practice birth control on the assumption that we will rear all our children. They have other customs. If a nation decides that it will restrict population by war, disease, and famine instead of birth control, THAT'S THEIR DECISION. They have the same power to change how they deal with the inequalities of their society that we do. Look how well we're doing.

Afghanistan is a tribal nation. They don't have food for everyone, or clothing, or......so lots of them have to die or all of them are going to die.

It's a patriarchal culture in its fine distilled essence.

Since, right now, the international community is trying to maintain standards in the developed countries, very very little is going to trickle into Afghanistan. And, on the whole, the likelihood of it changing anything is very very small.

Of course, if one of the tiny lives saved is the one that leads them all out of darkness...

[Oregone]

10. Things weren't as backwards before the proxy war started in the late 70's

A lot of what Afghanistan became was a symptom of the Cold War.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/08/19/afghan.untold/index.html

[polly7]

12. K&R Thank you. n/t,

[dysfunctional press]

13. why do they keep resuscitating him..?

[WonderGrunion]

15. I don't care how many children die in Afghanistan.

And once we leave there, you won't either.

[polly7]

17. I care, Very much. n/t

[WonderGrunion]

18. Really? Because most people that post this crap only care about the US

withdrawing from Afghanistan. They have repeatedly shown that they have no thought or concern to what happens to the Afghan population once we leave. They don't care that any children are dying, just that their tax dollars are paying for it. They are as bad as Bart Stupak and his anti-abortion crusade.

[polly7]

20. No, I'm from Canada and I do have a cousin there serving there

at this moment as a PA, but I am sickened at the thought of children ANYWHERE suffering due to the stupidity and greed of 'adults'. Greed mostly, and the need for perpetual war, and those pipelines to move their stolen oil. It's always the children who suffer ........ they know that. They don't give a s*it - some of the rest of us have to.

[Greyhound]

16. War is like that, too bad they aren't shareholders.

:grr::banghead:

ETA;

1st Lt. Milo Minderbinder: Nately died a wealthy man, Yossarian. He had over sixty shares in the syndicate.
Yossarian: What difference does that make? He's dead.
1st Lt. Milo Minderbinder: Then his family will get it.
Yossarian: He didn't have time to have a family.
1st Lt. Milo Minderbinder: Then his parents will get it.
Yossarian: They don't need it, they're rich.
1st Lt. Milo Minderbinder: Then they'll understand.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

19. There's only one solution. Send more troops and give more money to the Pentagon.

Which is the solution for such problems that America has been using for decades.

[applegrove]

21. girl child education can change the world and the Taliban knows this so they refuse it.

[JI7]

22. so what should we do to help the children there ? these kids were/are dying whether or not we leave

unless something else is done.

[JI7]

23. probably for similar reasons, i hear many AFghan women die in childbirth