Red Cross says Afghan getting worse

9 Oct 2012, 10:09 am   -   Source: AAP

The head of the Red Cross says the situation in Afghanistan is getting worse for ordinary civilians.

The outgoing head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Afghanistan said on Monday that the armed conflict in the country has taken "a turn for the worse" for ordinary civilians.

"I am filled with concern as I leave this country. Since I arrived here in 2005, local armed groups have proliferated, civilians have been caught between not just one but multiple front lines, and it has become increasingly difficult for ordinary Afghans, particularly out in the rural areas, to obtain health care when injured or sick," Reto Stocker said in Kabul.

"We often hear testimonies of those being forced to feed or shelter members of one party to the conflict at night, only to be accused the very next morning by another party of the conflict of having assisted, giving support to the enemy.

"The civilian population in conflict areas lives in constant fear of improvised explosive devices or of being caught up in the fighting," Stocker told reporters.

"The expansion of the conflict and deterioration in security is hindering the delivery of humanitarian assistance, especially in areas where it's urgently needed."

Afghanistan has been going through a deadly Taliban insurgency since 2001 when a US-led invasion ousted the Islamic regime from Kabul.

Eleven years later Afghanistan is still unstable and violence is at a peak.

The outgoing ICRC chief said providing services to the civilian population in villages has faced security hurdles in recent years.

"Access is indeed a huge problem. There are many places in the country where we should be and we can't go," Stocker said.

"Security, even for an organisation that has contacts with all the parties to the conflict, can explain what it is doing, and can discuss its security, is difficult."

Stocker said the "proliferation of armed groups and armed actors" in recent years poses a big security challenge.

"We see a conflict that is growing more and more local, that is fought in the villages," he said. Several districts in Kunduz (in northern Afghanistan) have a relatively low number of formal civil defence initiatives... but a lot and lot of (pro-government) militias that are not reporting within any formal chain of command in Kabul."

The ICRC, a humanitarian organisation based in Switzerland, has been working in Afghanistan since 1979. It is now the biggest ICRC operation in the world.

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