Are Somalian civilians the next to die in the U.S. "war on terrorism"? http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=109463
**Updates: At least 3700 Afghani Civilians KIlled by US Bombs!
**Also: Unicef Says Afghan Children Need Immediate Aid to Survive

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DECEMBER 10, 2001
10:00 AM
CONTACT: Marc Herold
Marc Herold (603) 862-3375
Andrea Buffa (510) 839-8911


3,500 Civilians Killed in Afghanistan by U.S. Bombs
University of New Hampshire Economics Professor Releases Study of Civilian
Casualties in Afghanistan Monday Morning on Democracy Now! Radio/TV Show


DURHAM, NEW HAMPSHIRE - December 10 - More than 3,500 civilians have been
killed in Afghanistan by U.S. bombs, according to a study to be released
December 10 by Marc W. Herold, Professor of Economics, International
Relations, and Women's Studies at the University of New Hampshire. Professor
Herold will announce his findings on Monday, December 10 in a discussion
with
award-winning journalist, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! in Exile's War and
Peace Report ( http://www.democracynow.org).

**Link to the DN! Report:
 http://stream.realimpact.org/rihurl.ram?file=webactive/exile/dn20011210.ra&sta

rt="9:53.7"

Professor Herold has been gathering data on civilian casualties since October
7 by culling information from news agencies, major newspapers, and first-hand
accounts. "I decided to do the study because I suspected that the modern
weaponrywas not what it was advertised to be. I was concerned that there
would be significant civilian casualties caused by the bombing, and I was
able to find some mention of casualties in the foreign press but almost
nothing in the U.S. press," said Herold.

Herold's data is available at:  http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mwherold/ (On MS
Excel spread sheet format) or
MS Word Format:  http://www.democracynow.org/thndtrmb.doc

For each day since October 7, when the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan began, he
lists the number of casualties, location, type of weapon used, and source(s)
of information. Following are several examples from his daily calculations:

* On October 11, two U.S. jets bombed the mountain village of Karam,
comprised of 60 mud houses, during dinner and evening prayer time, killing
100-160 people. Sources: DAWN, (English language Pakistani daily newspaper),
the Guardian of London, the Independent, International Herald Tribune, the
Scotsman, the Observer, and the BBC News.


* On October 13, in the early morning, an F-18 dropped 2,000 lb. JDAM bombs
on the Qila Meer Abas neighborhood, 2 kms. South of the Kabul airport,
killing four people. Sources: Afghan Islamic Press, Los Angeles Times,
Frontier Post, Pakistan Observer, the Guardian of London, and the BBC News.


* On October 31, in a pre-dawn raid, an F-18 dropped a 2,000 lb. JDAM bomb
on a Red Crescent clinic, killing 15 - 25 people. Sources: DAWN, the Times of
London, the Independent, the Guardian, Reuters, Associated Press, and Agence
France Presse.


Professor Herold has sought whenever possible to cross-corroborate accounts
of civilian casualties. He relied upon British, Canadian, and Australian
newspapers; Indian newspapers, especially The Times of India; three Pakistani
daily newspapers; the Singapore News; Afghan Islamic Press; Agence France
Press; Pakistan News Service; Reuters; BBC News Online; Al Jazeera; and a
variety of other reputable sources, including the United Nations and other
relief agencies.

The Pentagon has repeatedly denied reports of civilian casualties in
Afghanistan, and most U.S. media outlets have qualified their reports of
casualties with the statement "could not be independently confirmed." But
Professor Herold has been able to confirm the number of casualties and has
found that the number is climbing toward 4,000. "People have to know that
there is a human cost to war, and that this is a war with thousands of
casualties," said Herold. "These were poor people to begin with, and, on top
of that, they had absolutely nothing to do with the events of September 11."
==================================================
Unicef Says Afghan Children Need Immediate Aid to
Survive

by Elizabeth Olson

Published on Sunday, December 9, 2001 in the New
York Times
 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1209-02.htm


GENEVA, Dec. 8 — The executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund
says that the organization is striving to provide the basics of food and
water to ensure the survival of an estimated 1.5 million children in
Afghanistan who
are at the greatest risk.

"The basics are the primary issue," said Carol Bellamy, Unicef's executive
director, who stopped in Geneva on Friday on her way from a trip to Pakistan
and Afghanistan to assess the needs of the estimated 10 million children in
the country. The neediest are 1.5 million children under 5 years old, of
which 150,000 are considered seriously malnourished, she said.

Ms. Bellamy said their needs included food, water, winter clothes, blankets
and heated tents in a region that had been hit hard by conflict, drought,
disease and displacement. "With winter arriving in Afghanistan at the same
time as a new set of political circumstances come into view, this is a
crucial time," she said in an interview.

"As we plan for the reconstruction of the country's education system, health
care network and other basic services for children, we cannot forget the
immediate needs that must be met over the next difficult months."

Poverty and malnutrition among children has been made worse by the
displacement inside the country, Ms. Bellamy said. "This movement to the
borders has increased the risk of exposure, and the greater potential of
encountering land mines," she
said. Afghanistan is one of the world's most heavily mined countries.

Unicef is moving ahead with its immunization programs, having completed a
drive to protect children against polio, which is still found in Afghanistan.
A campaign to vaccinate against measles started last week in camps of
internally displaced people in the north of the country. This is crucial, Ms.
Bellamy said, because preventable
diseases kill one in four Afghan children before age 5.

Eventually, Unicef, which has operated in Afghanistan since 1949, will focus
on the
country's shattered education system, Ms. Bellamy said. The last 20 years of
turmoil and conflict have left only 25 percent of the men and 5 percent of
women literate.

The agency has sponsored some home-based schools, an alternative for girls
who were not permitted to attend school under the Taliban. Ms. Bellamy said
that she visited a school in Kabul last week, and found that the number of
children attending such schools had skyrocketed, and that they now included
boys, too.

"Though the school year starts at the end of March, parents are so eager to
send their kids to school, to give them a safe place to spend a few hours a
day, that they send them to these schools," she said.

She said she would be seeking support to subsidize the salaries of teachers
returning to public schools.


Lee Siu Hin

Peace, No War!
War is not the answer, for only love can conquer hate!

Please visit our global antiwar information, www.Peace.NoWar.net