Cruel Afghan tragedy

The extent of the human tragedy is too cruel to behold. It may take weeks to know how many people perished in one of the poorest countries on Earth as a section of a mountain collapsed, killing 300 people.

Badakhshan is in the most remote and mountainous part of Afghanistan on the borders of Tajikistan, China and Pakistan where rescue efforts have been so hampered by the inaccessibility of the terrain that international aid agencies have begun focusing more on reaching food, medicines and shelter to the displaced rather than trying to rescue the buried. But then, some rescuers themselves have been buried by subsequent landslips.

By far, the worst part of the tragedy is poor people die and the world reconciles itself quickly to the loss. Sorrow is expressed, with sincerity of course, but the world quickly moves on unlike the Malaysian air tragedy in which the fate of a couple of hundred flyers was sealed and the hunt goes on.

The people of Afghanistan are paying the price continuously for what is known as the forgotten war. There is none to look after their lot while billions have gone down in armaments.

Hundreds of international NGOs operate in Afghanistan, so too US and UN aid agencies. However, the focus is so much on the threat from Taliban terror, security, environment and the need to bring disparate politicians together in seeking peace in a complex land hit by an even more complex and long running war that the real human problem of the country remains totally ignored.