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Outgoing Red Cross head in Kabul has bleak outlook
http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/2012/10/08/outgoing-red-cross-head-kabul-has-bleak-outlook/xgF6tdiQ71zMnuNGrNCMwO/story.htmlOutgoing Red Cross head in Kabul has bleak outlook
AP / October 8, 2012
GENEVA (AP) — The outgoing head of the Red Cross delegation in Afghanistan says civilians are in greater danger with less hope for peace than when he arrived on his job seven years ago.
Reto Stocker says he’s ‘‘filled with concern’’ as he leaves the job he’s had since 2005 because suffering and hardship have increased among ordinary Afghans while their ‘‘hope for the future has been steadily declining.’’
Stocker said in a statement Monday that the proliferation of local armed groups has left civilians ‘‘caught between not just one but multiple front lines.’’
But he says the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross has made some progress by persuading warring parties to hear some its concerns about the war that began when the U.S. invaded on Oct. 7, 2001.
unhapppycamper comment: This book details Britain's first loss in Afghanistan.
Get out. Now.
3 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/1008/breaking25.html
?ts=1349704508
An Afghan man makes kebabs as children wait to receive their meal in the old part of Kabul city today. Photograph: Mohammad Ismail/Reuters
The Afghanistan war is getting worse for civilians, with armed groups on the rise across the country and access to healthcare deteriorating as foreign combat troops depart, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said today.
Outgoing head of the ICRC delegation in Afghanistan Reto Stocker, a seven-year veteran of Afghan aid efforts, said as the Nato-led war against the Taliban dragged into a 12th year, the outlook for ordinary Afghans was increasingly bleak.
"Since I arrived here in 2006, local armed groups have proliferated. Civilians have been caught between not just one, but multiple front lines," Mr Stocker told journalists in Kabul.
A security analysis prepared by the International Crisis Group think tank, also released today, said President Hamid Karzai's increasingly unpopular government could collapse after the Nato withdrawal, especially if people lost confidence in the outcome of presidential elections the same year.
?ts=1349704508
An Afghan man makes kebabs as children wait to receive their meal in the old part of Kabul city today. Photograph: Mohammad Ismail/Reuters
The Afghanistan war is getting worse for civilians, with armed groups on the rise across the country and access to healthcare deteriorating as foreign combat troops depart, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said today.
Outgoing head of the ICRC delegation in Afghanistan Reto Stocker, a seven-year veteran of Afghan aid efforts, said as the Nato-led war against the Taliban dragged into a 12th year, the outlook for ordinary Afghans was increasingly bleak.
"Since I arrived here in 2006, local armed groups have proliferated. Civilians have been caught between not just one, but multiple front lines," Mr Stocker told journalists in Kabul.
A security analysis prepared by the International Crisis Group think tank, also released today, said President Hamid Karzai's increasingly unpopular government could collapse after the Nato withdrawal, especially if people lost confidence in the outcome of presidential elections the same year.
