An impassioned plea for emergency aid for refugees of recent fighting and drought in northern Afghanistan has come from an Irish aid worker touring the region for the past month.
Mr Terence O'Malley of SAFE (Support Afghan Further Education), an Irish NGO which has been aiding projects in Afghanistan for the past decade, made his appeal in an e-mail from the western city of Herat.
He spoke of "waves of refugees" entering Pakistan in a desperate effort to search for food and shelter. Many had been forced to eat next year's wheat seed, foreshadowing a worse situation in 2001. "The government of Afghanistan is quite unmindful of the basic needs of its people," he said.
News agencies this week reported renewed heavy pre-winter fighting between Afghanistan's ruling Taliban extremist Islamic movement and the forces of the former ruler, Ahmad Shah Masood, for control of Taloqan, capital of the north eastern province of Takhar.
The Taliban has captured some 95 per cent of Afghanistan but has failed to win international recognition as the legal government. Four years ago it drove the Masood forces out of the capital, Kabul, and this summer it took Taloqan. The Taliban says the opposition is getting Russian help.
Mr O'Malley criticised international sanctions against the Taliban, which were preventing emergency help getting to the people.
"The Taliban appear to have one thought only and that is to crush Masood," he said. But he suggested that foreign governments should "examine their consciences" and "fulfill their obligations by donating additional emergency funds" to help the people. "Such funds are desperately needed," he said.
Mr O'Malley, who said he had visited five camps for Internally Displaced People (IDPs) near Herat and several in Pakistan, said the thousands of people coming from Ghor and Badgis provinces to Herat City "have no food at all, as the harvest was virtually non existent due to the severity of the drought", caused by insufficient snow and rain last winter.
"Many have left their animals to die. Some animals were even too sick to be given away as charity and nobody would buy them in the bazaar.
"Help is desperately needed in Herat. Children are dying from cold and hunger," he wrote, adding that the aid community was "severely overstretched, and now restricted by lack of funding".
At Shaidayee camp near Herat "the biting cold at night has already caused over 20 fatalities amongst the children, and some of the elderly," he said.
"As I left Shaidyee Camp, I met a seemingly elderly lady, probably no more than 35 years old. I persuaded her to show me her sole meal of the day. She displayed about two handfuls of broken nan bread, a handful of rice and some salt. She also had to feed her children.
"Despite her hunger and hardship she still smiled and laughed, and did not, at any time, beg for help. Such is the pride and resilience of the Afghan people."