Friday, October 14, 2016

Weapons, Soldiers and Check-posts for sale

As violence grows, the business of destruction and killings expands, and more people die and injured. Government of the two Presidents has failed miserably to positively respond to the looming threat of state collapse as the nation lost trust over their way of governance. The Unity government has divided the country on North and south where every president manages his own administration.

by Musa Khan Jalalzai

( October 14, 2016, Islamabad, Sri Lanka Guardian) Last week, a number of Afghan parliamentarians from Kunduz province accused the Unity Government, and its armed forces for supporting terrorist organizations like ISIS and Taliban. They alleged that military commanders were providing arms, financial assistance, and sanctuaries to terrorists, and transport their suicide bomber to their destinations. These were the most disturbing accusations at the floor of Parliament in Afghan history. The MPs also accused ANA commanders for handing dozens of check posts along with sophisticated arms over to the Taliban. An MP from Kunduz province, Miss. Fatima Aziz said that Defence and Interior Affairs Ministries failed to maintain security and law and order in the country. She also accused the police commanders for facilitating Taliban against the ANA positions. “All Afghan officials in Kunduz province, including Afghan National Army (ANA), police and local government officials in cooperation with the people from central government handed the city to the Taliban”, said Fatima.

Afghan opposition perceives the persisting disagreement between the two heads of state, and poor leadership as the reason that the Kunduz city fell to Taliban. Moreover, prominent military analyst, Javed Kohistani hammered the Afghan National Army for selling weapons to Taliban. “We have evidence that prove there are people inside the security forces that sell weapons and checkpoints to the Taliban and let their fellow (colleagues) being arrested by insurgents. There is the type of betrayal that exists among the security forces, especially the local police”, said Javed.

Other MPs also levelled the same accusations against the ANA commanders and local administration. “The lack coherent strategy in Kunduz province, and corruption are bigger challenges”, said Mirdad Nijrabi, head of internal security committee in parliament. The governor of Kunduz province, Assadullah Omar Khel slammed Vice Chief of Army Staff, Gen Murad Ali for the collapse of the city. “I asked that first we should clear the entire city, but Gen Murad did not accept my suggestions and acted according to his own plan…..In these attacks people of Kunduz suffered a lot”, said the governor. However, Chief of Afghan intelligence (NDS) apologized for his failure to counter Taliban insurgents. Muhammad Masoom Stanekzai acknowledged that government failed to intercept Taliban outside Kunduz city.

In 2016, amid this dirty warfare, Taliban introduced new strategies of war by controlling districts and provinces without fighting against the Afghan security forces. They entered negotiation for fixing bargains with the ANA commanders on the terms and conditions of purchasing military check posts including weapons and soldiers in various provinces. Before Taliban entered Kunduz and Helmand provinces, they bribed the ANA commanders and local warlords and allowed them to safely escape the city. The ANA officers are not paid their salaries regularly by the Defence Ministry, the reason why they sale check posts, weapons and military secrets to terrorists groups.

Afghan security forces are reluctant to protect the interests of ruling mafia groups and their American partners. Mismanagement, political interference, ghost solders, poor war capabilities and corruption are challenges that made the force more vulnerable. Ruction over the perceptualization of ethnic war between President Ghani and Mr. Abdullah has badly affected the conglomeration of ethnic alliance. In August 2016, Mr. Abdullah severely criticized President Ashraf Ghani for his unilateralism. Difference over the appointment of governors, military commanders and police officers reached at the point of no return. President Ghani wants to take the war to the Northern provinces of the country while Mr. Abdullah does not agree with him, and accuses him for collaboration with Taliban against ethnic minorities. The recent attacks by Taliban in Kunduz further intensified their blame game as they failed to adopt a long-term military strategy against Taliban and Islamic State.

This way of Kleptocratic governance does not benefit the poor and insecure people of Afghanistan where public aspirations are not respected and national interests are considered as second priority. Both the Presidents are busy in sorting out their political issues but failed to settle the key issues like appointments of governors and military commanders. Last week, the desertion of soldiers to the Taliban and ISIS became a complicated crisis. More than 44 ANA officers disappeared in the United States, 60 police officers were sold to Taliban in Badghis province and 70 in Helmand province.

The business of war and destruction is profitable in Afghanistan where US and Afghan warlords are dancing side by side. The current situation in the country is worse than at any time since 2001. Today, Taliban control more than 70 percent of Afghanistan and target not just the capital, but also provinces across the country. As Afghanistan is a resources-rich country, much of the profit from lapis, lazuli, and gold goes into the pockets of US and Afghan warlords. Fifteen years into the war in the country the US fed Afghan war criminals, human right violators and corrupt civil military officials who helped NATO and ISAF in occupying the country. On 08 October 2016, Pentagon raised the issue of ghost soldiers within the Afghan National Army, and assured Watchdog Agency that the US commanders were struggling to track Afghan active-duty security forces so save the US taxpayer money on so called ghost soldiers. According to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) report, the issue of ghost soldiers is too irksome. SIGAR also expressed concern about the war in South and the North, and warned that the US money provided to the Afghan security forces could be pocketed by Afghan military commanders under the guise of paying soldiers who have deserted, died or never existed.

As violence grows, the business of destruction and killings expands, and more people die and injured. Government of the two Presidents has failed miserably to positively respond to the looming threat of state collapse as the nation lost trust over their way of governance. The Unity government has divided the country on North and south where every president manages his own administration. In districts and municipalities, no election has yet been held for formal government offices at village level. Many of these villages are instead self-governed by a combination of village elders and local councils who act as intermediaries between the communities and governors. The state is now ultimately shrunken, defeated, humiliated and fractured due to the return of war criminals to the government.

The writer is author of “Fixing the EU Intelligence Crisis” can be reached

atzai.musakhan222@gmail.com

Leaked emails show donors drive Hillary Clinton’s pro-Israel positions

Hillary Clinton

-Adam SchultzHillary for America

Rania Khalek-13 October 2016

A batch of internal Clinton campaign emails published by Wikileaks in recent days reveals the extent to which campaign donors drive Hillary Clinton’s rhetoric and policy positions on Israel and the broader Middle East.

Last year, Hillary Clinton wrote a letter to billionaire media mogul Haim Saban on he

r campaign stationery vowing “to make countering BDS a priority” if she wins the presidency.

Saban has donated at least $7 million to getting Clinton elected president and openly confesses that his number one priority is influencing US policy in Israel’s favor.

According to the emails between Clinton’s senior campaign aides, the letter to Saban was deliberately leaked to friendly media to attract pro-Israel donors concerned about the rise of the BDS – boycott, divestment and sanctions – movement.

The way the campaign aides discuss the issue is completely devoid of emotion or ideology. It’s all about the donors.

Opposing BDS to please donors

In a 3 July 2015 email to campaign staffers, Clinton’s campaign manager Robby Mook wrote, “I was just thinking: has she made a clear statement on Israel yet? I get this question from donors all the time. Does she need to state her principles on Israel before Iran? Or do both at the same time?”

“That’s basically the goal of the BDS letter,” responded Clinton speechwriter Dan Schwerin.

“We could either get a donor to leak it or just give it to a reporter if we want to get it out there. I’m semi-surprised it’s not out yet,” replied deputy communications director Christina Reynolds.

Clinton’s voice is nowhere to be seen in the correspondence. “We have a two pager I’m getting clearance from her on. That is what we have to ship around,” Jake Sullivan, a senior foreign policy adviser to Clinton, wrote.

“Let’s def give it to someone. I see zero downside to a story. Then we can circulate around right away (hopefully) in advance of Iran,” reasoned Mook.

“If Haim’s going to give it to the Jewish media, I think that solves our problem. Once they write, we can make sure it gets picked up by some of our beat guys,” Christina Reynolds responded.

Three days later, Politico reported on and published the letter.

The emails show Saban coordinating directly with the Clinton campaign, offering positive reinforcement for Clinton’s pro-Israel messaging and strategizing with Clinton aides against BDS.

Israel’s liaison

The emails show that Stuart Eizenstat, a former US ambassador to the EU under President Bill Clinton, acted as a liaison between the Israeli government and the Hillary Clinton campaign, counseling senior staffers on how to adjust their messaging to the liking of the Israeli leadership.

Eizenstat wrote lengthy and detailed emails to campaign aides summarizing his meetings with Israeli government officials and recommending talking points for Clinton to adopt.

The Clinton campaign frequently thanked Eizenstat for his counsel, regularly implemented his suggestions and often sought his approval on speeches related to Israel.

“I took some of your concepts but left out the specifics,” foreign policy adviser Sullivan wrote in a July 2015email to Eizenstat.

Sullivan was seeking pointers for Clinton’s statement in response to the passage of the Iran nuclear deal.

A month earlier, Sullivan messaged Eizenstat for advice on BDS: “I was talking to HRC [Hillary Clinton] today about the idea of having her meet with some Jewish leaders later this week about BDS/delegitimization efforts. She and the leaders could go out and make a statement following the meeting.”

Sullivan sought Eizenstat’s opinion on who Clinton should include in such an initiative.

Netanyahu is ready for Hillary

In December 2015, Eizenstat reported on his “meeting with a senior [Israeli] official who is very close to the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu], and knows his thinking.”

“The prime minister always had a ‘surprising good relationship’ with Hillary; she is ‘easy to work with,’ and that she is more instinctively sympathetic to Israel than the White House,” Eizenstat wrote.

The official also told Eizenstat that “Israel [sic] Arabs are a ‘real problem.’ The government had to dismantle the northern branch of the Islamic Association because they were radicalizing the Israeli Arabs, who are 20 percent of the population.”

Eizenstat was referring to Israel’s ban on the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement, a political party with a large following among Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Eizenstat’s emails also reflect the Israeli leadership’s intense hostility toward President Barack Obama.

In a May 2015 email to the Clinton campaign, Eizenstat noted that in his meeting with the Israelis, “The level of vitriol against the president was striking, to such a degree that one participant urged that he was being unfairly demonized.”

In June 2015, Eizenstat wrote, “I was struck in my week in Israel, not only among Israeli officials, but among my friends across the political spectrum (most are former officials) and apolitical relatives, at the depth of antipathy and distrust of President Obama, as ‘weak,’ ‘pro-Muslim’ and ‘anti-Israel.’”

“Attack, attack, attack”

In another June 2015 email, Eizenstat provides details of a meeting with Netanyahu and his cabinet in which Netanyahu urges attacking BDS and recruiting Latinos, Evangelical Christians and Asian Americans to assist in the effort.

Summarizing Netanyahu’s views, Eizenstat wrote: “On BDS, Israel should move from the defense to the offense. It should be attacked on moral grounds. It is ‘unjust’ and ‘cruel.’ Israel must attack its attackers. The best defense is a good offense: ‘attack, attack, attack.’”

Smearing BDS

In an August 2015 email labeled “NOT FOR CIRCULATION,” Eizenstat passed along advice to Hillary Clinton from Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador in Washington.

A US-born right-winger who has been called “Bibi’s brain,” Dermer told Eizenstat that the Israeli government was plotting to smear Palestine solidarity activism on college campuses as terrorism.

“They will shortly expose the funding base for the main BDS group on campus, Students for Justice in Palestine, which tie it with terrorist funding,” Eizenstat wrote. “The key is to expose BDS as anti-Semitic and anti-Israel.”

No-fly zone would “kill a lot of Syrians”

During the Democratic Party primary race, Bernie Sanders repeatedly called on Clinton to release the transcripts of her paid speeches to Wall Street banks, but she refused.

One of the most damning aspects of the latest Wikileaks dump is the excerpts of Clinton’s paid speeches.

In a speech to Goldman Sachs in 2013, Clinton confessed that a no-fly zone in Syria would “kill a lot of Syrians.” This is because it would require bombing Syria’s air defenses, “many of which are located in populated areas,” according to Clinton.

While making this assessment in private, Clinton has continued to publicly advocate for a no-fly zone, ostensibly to protect Syrian civilians.

Saudi support for ISIS

Clinton told the Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago at a luncheon in 2013 that Israel and Jordan were working in close partnership for the purpose of “shoring up King Abdullah.”

That same year she told congregants at a synagogue, “One of the developments of the Arab Spring is that you now have Israel and Saudi Arabia more closely aligned in their foreign policy” in the region.

Publicly, Clinton frequently casts Iran as the single greatest funder of terrorism in the world. But privately she has repeatedly acknowledged Saudi Arabia’s contribution to violent extremism.

At a Jewish United Fund dinner in 2013, Clinton said she preferred “a more robust, covert action” to arm Syrian rebels against the government of Bashar al-Assad.

But she added that this was complicated because, “the Saudis and others are shipping large amounts of weapons – and pretty indiscriminately – not at all targeted toward the people that we think would be the more moderate.”

She also described Saudi Arabia’s fierce opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood as “kind of ironic since the Saudis have exported more extreme ideology than any other place on earth over the course of the last 30 years.”

In one of the leaked emails Clinton accuses Saudi Arabia and Qatar of funding the Islamic State, sometimes referred to as ISIS or ISIL.

Citing “Western intelligence, US intelligence and sources in the region,” Clinton wrote, “We need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region.”

It’s all about the donors

The Clinton Foundation has accepted millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

And while serving as secretary of state, Clinton greenlighted enormous weapons deals to those countries.

From Israel to Saudi Arabia, it is clear that Clinton’s donors are in charge. They exert more influence over her public positions and policy prescriptions than she does.

If Clinton were running against Senators Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio, these emails would be scandalous.

Instead, the leaks have been completely overshadowed by the even more sensational and lurid October surprisethat befell Republican nominee Donald Trump.

Clinton is lucky her opponent is more disliked and disingenuous than she is.

How Zimbabwe Made Zimbabwe’s Flag Illegal

BY MUNYARADZI DODO-OCTOBER 14, 2016

Trevor Saruwaka, a member of the Zimbabwean parliament, got some good news this week: A court has just cleared him of “gathering with intent to promote public violence, a breach of the peace, or bigotry.” The serious-sounding charges stemmed from his participation in a September demonstration that was violently broken up by the government.

Just last week, Saruwaka was courting an entirely different sort of controversy, when security guards barred him from entering the parliament building to attend the body’s opening session. The cited reason will probably come across as absurd to anyone living outside our country: The lawmaker was wearing a jacket in the green, gold, red and black colors of the national flag. “I am shocked because I didn’t know it’s a criminal offense to be patriotic,” Saruwaka said.

Zimbabwe’s flag has become a symbol of protest since pastor Evan Mawarire accidentally founded the#ThisFlag movement earlier this year when a video of himself draped in the flag and lamenting the state of the country’s governance went viral on Facebook. In response, thousands of Zimbabweans have been inspired to speak up against the government by posting pictures of themselves with the flag.

Mawarire’s intent was straightforward. He wanted to remind the government that Zimbabwe belongs to its people, and not to a particular political party.

Mugabe and the other members of his ruling ZANU-PF party were not amused. As the protests have continued, the regime has resorted to a rather desperate stratagem — they’ve essentially banned their own country’s flag. On September 20, Justice Ministry official Virginia Mabhiza warned citizens that using the flag without the government’s permission is punishable by a fine of $200 (in a country where the average citizen lives on just over $3 per day), a jail term of up to one year, or both. Mabhiza cited an obscure law that makes it illegal to “burn, mutilate or otherwise insult the national flag … in circumstances which are calculated or likely to show disrespect … or to bring [it] into disrepute.”

Needless to say, the law says nothing at all about how the government defines “disrespect” or “disrepute,” leaving vast leeway to the powers-that-be to interpret these criteria as they see fit.

In Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, the mere act of wrapping oneself in the national flag is now deemed an act of subversion. The Herald, a state-controlled newspaper, accused protesters of “using the flag to whip up political emotions against the constitutionally elected government.”

Pastor Mawarire was briefly arrested, but walked free after the government failed to make treason charges stick. He left Zimbabwe for South Africa, and now lives in the United States. The #ThisFlag movement has lost momentum since his departure — but other civic groups such as the Tajamuka Movement, which has been using social media to galvanize protests, have moved into the spotlight. The group’s leader, Promise Mkwananzi, toldReuters that the group has no intention of obeying the government’s restrictions. “It is total insanity that government should ban citizens from using their own flag,” he said.“We are going to continue to make use of our flag. It is our identity.”

Critics have dismissed the government’s ban as baseless. Fadzayi Mahere, a Harare-based lawyer, says that the regulations cited by the government don’t require citizens to seek its permission to “wear or possess the flag,” and that wearing, using, or possessing the national flag doesn’t constitute a criminal offense. “And even where sale and manufacture of the flag are concerned, no law bans these activities,” he added.

As I see it, the flag ban is attempt by Mugabe’s government to reclaim the upper hand in an environment where protests seem to have become the norm. What better way to slow down popular uprisings than to take away the symbol that unites the protestors?

Banning the flag may also make it easier for security forces to single out, arrest, and convict protesters.
The government had been finding it hard to find justifiable reasons to imprison protesters, as the Zimbabwean constitution explicitly gives citizens the right to protest.

When Mugabe became the country’s first post-independence leader, one of his first responsibilities was to sign off on the design of the new national flag. It seems possible that that same flag will signal the end of the Mugabe era.

In the photo, Zimbabwean “ThisFlag” activists demonstrate in front of the Zimbabwean embassy in Pretoria, South Africa, on July 14.

Photo credit: MARCO LONGARI/AFP/Getty Images

Indonesia approves chemical castration, death penalty law on child sex convicts

Indonesian President Joko Widodo. Pic: AP.

14th October 2016

CONVICTED child sex offenders may soon face chemical castration in Indonesia after its Parliament approved a regulation to introduce harsher penalties on such criminals, despite criticisms from rights groups.

According to the Straits Times (via the Jakarta Post), Indonesia’s house of representatives gave the green light on the punishment after a heated debate on Wednesday. The regulation was inked in May by President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo following a string of sex crimes against children that had caused public outcry.

Prior to Wednesday’s approval, the maximum penalty for sex offences involving children was 15 years’ prison. The heavier punishments mooted by Jokowi included the death penalty.

SEE ALSO: Indonesia: Child sex offenders to face chemical castration to curb sexual violence

Since the regulation was passed in lieu of law – a provision under Indonesia’s Constitution that gives the president the right to issue a rule for emergency reasons (Perppu) – Parliament has a year-long time frame to let it remain effective or end it.

Ledia Hanifa, a lawmaker from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), said lawmakers had asked the government to deliberate the finer details of how the castration penalty would be meted out. PKS was one of the initial two parties that had initially rejected the passage of the law, but eventually relented.

She said the new regulation neglects the victim and merely focussed on punishing the perpetrators.

“The Perppu still lacks concern for the victims, as it focuses only on punishing the perpetrators but neglects to provide compensation, restitution and rehabilitation for victims and their families,” Ledia was quoted as saying.

SEE ALSO: Indonesian court sentences gang leader to death over rape and murder of girl

Earlier this month, an Indonesian court sentenced to death the leader of a gang of men and boys who raped and murdered a school girl in a high-profile case.

He was part of a group of 14 men, including eight boys, who were involved in the gang rape on the remote island. The youngest attacker was only 13 years old.

The sentencing came after the April 2 murder of Yuyun, who was gang-raped and killed while she was on her way home from school. Her body was discovered dumped in a river at a rubber plantation in a small village of the Bengkulu Province, Sumatra, two days after the incident.

In wake of the crime, women’s groups called for the government to pass an Elimination of Sexual Violence Bill.

Joy for relatives of Chibok girl among 21 freed by Nigeria's Boko Haram

The militant group has kidnapped hundreds of men, women and children but the kidnapping of the Chibok girls brought it worldwide attention

By Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani-Friday, 14 October 2016

ABUJA, Oct 14 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Relatives of one of the 21 Chibok schoolgirls freed by Islamist militant group Boko Haram after two-and-a-half years in captivity in northeast Nigeria said on Friday they could not wait to be reunited.

Around 220 girls were taken from their school in Chibok in the remote northeastern Borno state, where Boko Haram has waged a seven-year insurgency aimed at creating an Islamic state, killing thousands and displacing more than 2 million people.

Boko Haram released 21 of the girls on Thursday after the Red Cross and the Swiss government brokered a deal with the group. They were brought from the northeastern city of Maiduguri to the capital Abuja to meet government officials.

Travelling from eastern Yola to Abuja, Goni Mutah, the father of Asabe Goni, who was 21 when she was kidnapped, was overjoyed to hear of his daughter's release, and said he had immediately phoned his relatives to share the news.

"Seeing her will bring happiness to us," Samuel, a cousin of Asabe, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in Abuja.

"And we will hear about the other girls," he said, adding that his delight at Asabe's release was tinged with sadness because his sister, Margaret, and several other relatives who had been kidnapped in Chibok, were not among the 21 freed girls.

The militant group has kidnapped hundreds of men, women and children but the kidnapping of the Chibok girls brought it worldwide attention, with some 200 of them still missing.

Information Minister Lai Mohammed denied reports that the government had swapped Boko Haram fighters for their release and said he was not aware if any ransom had been paid. He said a Nigerian army operation against Boko Haram would continue.

It is unclear what will now happen to the freed girls.

Amina Ali, the first of the Chibok girls to be released from Boko Haram captivity in May, has since been held in a house in Abuja for what the state has called a "restoration process". She said in August that she "just wanted to go home".

In recent days, the Nigerian military has been carrying out a large-scale offensive in the Sambisa forest, a stronghold of Boko Haram. The militant group last year pledged loyalty to Islamic State.

Boko Haram controlled a swathe of land around the size of Belgium at the start of 2015, but Nigeria's army has recaptured most of the territory. The group still stages suicide bombings in the northeast, as well as in neighbouring Niger and Cameroon.

(Reporting By Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, Additional Reporting by Alexis Akwagyiram in Abuja, Writing By Kieran Guilbert, Editing By Ros Russell; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit news.trust.org)

75,000 children in Nigeria could die from hunger over the next year

Women wait for food to be distributed at an internally displaced persons camp in Monguno, Nigeria. Very little aid has reached those in need in Borno State, where it is estimated that more than 3 million people have been affected by a long-running conflict. (Jane Hahn for The Washington Post)

By Kevin Sieff October 14 at 1:08 PM

It was the missing schoolgirls who first made an obscure Nigerian Islamist group into a household name.

More than 200 students were kidnapped by Boko Haram insurgents in northern Borno state in April 2014. The #BringBackOurGirls campaign was born and soon mushroomed into an international cause.

Celebrities and political figures like first lady Michelle Obama tweeted appeals for the release of the young women. That's when the world got serious about defeating the militants. There was suddenly more money, more drones and more interest in a remote stretch of West Africa.

Two years later, that interest has faded. There are other, more advanced Islamist groups to think about. There is a U.S. presidential campaign in which Africa is not exactly playing a defining role.

But while the world has looked away, the crisis in northeastern Nigeria has morphed into something much more deadly. Insurgents are no longer the biggest threat. Now, it’s hunger.

[Special Report: ‘A famine unlike any we have ever seen’]

More than 3 million people are affected by what is becoming one of the world's largest humanitarian disasters. UNICEF has warned that as many as 75,000 children  could die in Borno and two adjacent states over the next year unless more assistance arrives.

But it has been incredibly difficult for groups to raise funds for food or health care for these victims, who have fled Boko Haram or are trapped in towns still threatened by the group. UNICEF, for example, has raised only $28 million of the $115 million it has asked for – a weak showing compared to its other country-specific appeals. At the U.N. General Assembly in September, the crisis was barely mentioned. Even Nigeria’s own media has focused on other matters, like a nationwide economic crisis.

It wasn't the kind of sudden natural disaster that spurred immediate interest. And the story line of the Nigerian schoolgirls – nearly all of them still missing – has faded along with the hope of finding them.

[Boko Haram frees 21 captive Chibok schoolgirls amid talks with Nigeria]

“In some ways Nigeria is seen as an old story,” said Simon Taylor, deputy head of office for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Nigeria.

That lack of funding and interest is now obvious all over northeastern Nigeria. For a while, it was extremely dangerous for humanitarian groups to try to reach the victims suffering from hunger and disease. But even in places that have become safe enough to work, there is not enough food or nutritional supplements for malnourished children. Humanitarian teams are still understaffed.

Boko Haram fighters are still launching attacks around Borno state, preventing aid workers from accessing as many as 2 million people, seven times the population of besieged eastern Aleppo.

In a recent trip to the region, photographer Jane Hahn and I visited three cities in the state where aid workers had just arrived in very small numbers. They had set up makeshift clinics and had begun distributing tents, but a huge portion of the victims I met had received little or no assistance. In some cases, aid representatives told me, their limited operations were a function of security concerns and the fact they hadn't been on the ground very long. Others said they were hampered by a lack of funding and a lack of worldwide interest in the crisis.

Some of the aid workers had previously served during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014, which prompted donations of billions of dollars in foreign assistance and the deployment of more than 2,000 U.S. military service members. When I covered that outbreak, I was struck by the scale of the response once the world mobilized. By comparison, Nigeria feels like a forgotten crisis.

“Children’s lives are literally hanging by a thread,” said Afshan Khan, UNICEF’s director of emergency programs. “We are reaching new areas to provide critical humanitarian assistance but we need greater international support to further scale up and reach all children in dire need."

Sarah Ndikumana, Nigeria country director at the International Rescue Committee, has called it "one of the biggest and most underfunded crises in the world.”

In each of the cities I visited, extended families crept out from the bombed-out buildings left behind by Boko Haram. Other people slept in stick huts. Still others spent the nights outside, without mosquito nets, in spite of the rampant malaria.

Adama Adam and her family escaped one of the villages controlled by militants in Borno. They made it to the city of Banki, where a small number of aid workers had just arrived.

The family had almost nothing to eat. Adam was so poorly nourished she was unable to breastfeed. Her 6-month-old baby, Fana Ali, had grown weak after contracting malaria. Shortly after I met the family, the infant died at a clinic run by Doctors Without Borders, one of hundreds of children that most likely lost their lives in September from hunger or curable disease, according to experts.

Aid workers have an idea why this crisis has drawn such limited attention and funding. There are other places of more geopolitical importance. There are other major crises that require a response. Some people see Nigeria, the second-wealthiest country in Africa, as capable of handling its own humanitarian assistance.

But the delays and lack of attention have caused many deaths, experts say, and they wonder how much the situation will have to deteriorate before the world notices.

Famine fears rise after hurricane wrecks Haiti's bread-basket

Women do their laundry at the shores of a river after Hurricane Matthew hit Jeremie, Haiti. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins--A woman cooks in an area destroyed by Hurricane Matthew in Les Anglais, Haiti. REUTERS/Andres Martinez Casares

Children sleep over metal sheets in a partially destroyed school used as a shelter after Hurricane Matthew hit Jeremie, Haiti. Hurricane Matthew has killed over 1,000 people in Haiti, tens of thousands have lost their homes and some 1.4 million are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

By Makini Brice-Sat Oct 15, 2016

Hurricane Matthew tore up large tracts of food crops as well as mature coffee and cocoa plantations when it ravaged Haiti's fertile south last week, with a U.N. official expressing concern about possible famine in the poorest nation in the Americas.

The destruction of crops like rice, corn and beans in the area puts more than 100,000 children at risk of acute malnutrition, the United Nations said on Friday, in a Caribbean country where half the population already was underfed before the powerful hurricane hit.

While about half of Haiti's food supply is imported, much of what it does produce is grown in the south.

As well as tearing up food staples and filling fields with sea water and trash, the storm uprooted plantations of cocoa, coffee and fruit trees, cash crops that are exported and that experts said will take at least five years to grow back.

"This is devastating, and it basically could mean that we have a famine in six months," said Yvonne Helle, Haiti's senior country director for the United Nations Development Programme.

Helle said preliminary figures indicated 60 to 80 percent of crops in the affected area had been lost to the storm.

"Not only has the harvest been lost, there also has been tremendous damage to fruit trees," Helle added, mentioning the mango, one of Haiti's primary exports.

Paul Joseph Maxel, a 75-year-old farmer based in the town of Saint-Jean-du-Sud, said he lost all but one of his 20 mango trees on a 15-acre (6-hectare) property he manages. He said coconut palms and avocado trees also were lost to the hurricane.

In front of a tent that his children, who live in Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince, bought and set up for him beside his hurricane-damaged house, Maxel said he hoped for aid in rebuilding the farm.

"Our worries are about how to begin planting trees again," he said.

The path to the farm, located on the side of a rolling hill and accessible only by foot, was littered with cracked coconuts and spoiled mangoes from uprooted trees.

On the other side of the hill, Auguste Donnay, a 30-year-old agronomy student, sat outside his family's damaged house.

It was the only structure standing remotely intact on the property, although it was missing most of its roof. Fallen trees covered the land, and two other buildings were reduced to wooden frames.

Donnay called for government assistance to the area's farmers, who he said do not have the resources to start again without help.

"If they must do it alone, many people will die ... of hunger," Donnay said.

Although Port-au-Prince was largely spared the hurricane's effects, Donnay said an agricultural crisis would reach beyond the south.

"They will be affected because it is the farmers here who feed the capital," Donnay said.

Matthew killed at least 1,000 Haitians, according to a Reuters tally of numbers given by local mayors, and left more than 175,000 people homeless.

"Disaster can be avoided if we act really quickly, in terms of helping people clear their land and start planting again," said Hervil Cherubin, Haiti country director for Heifer International, an agricultural aid group.

"People need access to seeds really quickly," Cherubin said.

(Reporting by Makini Brice; Editing by Will Dunham)