Living in hope

Annette Rawstrone
Wednesday, January 2, 2002

Aid agencies and charities are struggling to help the children of Afghanistan cope with famine, disease and homelessness and give them the education that would offer their country a future. Annette Rawstrone reports. The start of a new year is often a time for hope and looking towards the future. Afghan-istan's ten million children have more to hope for than many. While the war against the Taliban may be coming to an end, the humanitarian crisis is far from over. Even before the terrorist events in America on 11 September, Afghan-istan was at crisis point with the country's infrastructure wrecked by more than two decades of armed conflict, five years of Taliban rule and a three-year drought that killed livestock and crops and left children malnourished.