Aid agencies warn extra £15m will not avert looming winter disaster

War against terrorism: Aid funding

The Government announced on Friday that it would provide an extra £15m to help Afghanistan, but aid agencies are convinced that the funding will do nothing to avert an unfolding catastrophe, with the onset of winter now imminent.

Aid workers say the problem is not so much the lack of food, medicine and water, but the near impossibility of getting the supplies to those in need. The only way to achieve this, they say, is to have a break in the air strikes.

Clare Short, the Secretary of State for International Development, said on Friday that food convoys were getting through despite the hostilities, with about 500 tons arriving every week. However, movements of aid trucks will become extremely difficult with the arrival of ice and snow and the amount being delivered must be doubled, she said.

"It's a big effort, but I do believe it's do-able. We've got to double the scale of the operation to feed people now and lay down large stocks to get people through the winter. We are racing against time to truck massive quantities of food and other emergency supplies into the country before the snows make large-scale trucking hazardous. More than a quarter of the population of the country is already hungry."

Ms Short acknowledged that there were no international aid staff left inside Afghanistan. "Afghan commercial truckers are doing the work," she said. "The international staff are not inside because the Taliban are making life impossible and endangering the workers."

Soon after the 11 September attacks, Ms Short made an impassioned plea for America not to lash out in retaliation. Yesterday, she said she was wholly satisfied with the "very clear targeting" of the air strikes.

Senior military officers are deeply uneasy that much of the aid being delivered is being commandeered by the Taliban, with some of it being sold on the black market.

The Ministry of Defence has prepared contingency plans for British servicemen to drive trucks and escort convoys into vulnerable areas once the ground conflict begins. However, they need Ms Short and her Department For International Development to request assistance and, so far, she has not done so.

Last night, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and a coalition of charities expressed growing anger that efforts to counter the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan were being hampered.

The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) said it now had just 9,288 tons of food stored inside Afghanistan – a fraction of the 250,000 tons estimated to be necessary to feed 7.5 million Afghans for the five-month winter. WFP's large warehouse in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, close to the front line between Taliban and Northern Alliance forces, is now empty.

Other aid agencies also said there were acute problems. Oxfam, which has 140 Afghan staff helping to distribute food to outlying areas of the country, said that it had run out of supplies to feed the 350,000 people reliant on its aid.

The charity said that far from succeeding in stockpiling grain, pulses and oil for the coming winter, stocks had already reached critically low levels in areas around Herat, Kandahar and Faizabad.

Matt Granger, of Oxfam, said: "Our Afghan staff have told us that as of today they have no more food to distribute – not a sack of grain. There is so little food getting through we're going backwards.

"We are talking about a window of opportunity to store food that is closing incredibly fast. There needs to be a political will to deliver that food or it is going to be a very frightening winter."

Christian Aid, which works with five Afghan aid agencies to distribute food, said that what remained of Afghan society faced collapse as thousands flee from cities and villages to refugee camps.

A spokeswoman for the charity said: "There are huge amounts of food stockpiled outside the country – it is a matter of getting it inside. We want people to be fed in their homes and villages so they plant food for next spring. Once they reach camps, they are very reluctant to leave."

The UNHCR warned that its mission to set up refugee centres for a possible influx of 1.5 million refugees into countries bordering Afghanistan was being hampered by red tape and security concerns.

Ruud Lubbers, the UNHCR's high commissioner, said: "We are in a real race against time and right now we are losing. Unfortunately, we are not receiving the support in the region or internationally that we need."

Mr Lubbers said United Nations teams in Pakistan were being hindered by government restrictions on the siting of new camps and the refusal to open the country's border with Pakistan.

Aid agencies are also facing difficulties once they cross the border. Convoys had been held up by demands for "road tax" from Afghan officials.

A consignment of blankets was blocked on the border with Iran for 10 days, the International Organisation for Migration said. A spokeswoman said the agency had asked Afghanistan's ruling Taliban to send "someone with authority" to resolve the problem.