at least one staff member, officials said Monday, August 30, in what is seen as a further setback for Christian aid work in the troubled nation.
The ADRA office is nearby the initial target of the blast, which destroyed an office of an American defense contractor in Kabul, killing as many as seven people and seriously injuring several more, officials and residents told news organizations. The victims included two Americans, the Associated Press (AP) news agency reported.
"The windows and doors of two ADRA buildings have been damaged by the blast," said Dr. Peter Jaggi, country director for ADRA Afghanistan, in a Press Release made available BosNewsLife.
The Kabul attack came just hours after an explosion at a school in southern Afghanistan killed at least 10 people, nine of them children, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) qouted the U.S. military as saying.
"Debris from the car bomb is in our yard and our office and apartment are full of glass splinters," Jaggi concluded. Fortunately only one staff member sustained minor injuries, he said.
ADRA’s recent projects in Afghanistan include water, hygiene, and basic health initiatives. Among the activities was a project funded by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to improve access to clean water and promote safe hygiene practices in Jawzjan province, northern Afghanistan. The project aimed to decrease the prevalence of diarrhea-type diseases by targeting 50 schools attended by 13,500 students.
CLEAN WATER
"Clean water and sanitation is a serious problem in Afghanistan," said Fabiano Franz, projects director for ADRA Afghanistan recently.
"In urban areas, 65 percent of the population is without clean water, and 77 percent have no sanitation facilities. It’s even worse in rural areas where about 81 percent of the rural population doesn’t have access to safe water and 92 percent are without access to sanitation facilities. As a result, Afghanistan is rife with cases of diarrhea, cholera, dysentery, and malaria," Franz said.
Puppet theater and school posters were also scheduled to be used with characters such as a frog, who is the “water specialist” to teach safe hygiene practices. Educational messages were planned to be broadcast on local television to teach health messages and encourage families to adopt safe hygiene practices.
ADRA also completed an education project that rehabilitated a school and provided desks, chairs, sports and playground equipment, water wells, and glass for classroom windows.
UNCLEAR IMPACT
It was unclear how the latest bomb attack would affect the activities of the Christian organization, which claims to be represented in over 120 countries, providing individual and community development and disaster relief "without regard to political or religious association, age, or ethnicity."
Several aid organizations have been forced to either reduce staff or withdraw from Afghanistan, where remnants of the former Taleban regime and Osama Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist network, claimed responsibility for the attack.
They also pledged more violence, ahead of upcoming elections. Christians have been especially vulnerable in the region as they are accused by militants of supporting the United States-led war on terrorism. Analysts say that although the Taleban were ousted from power by a U.S.-led campaign in 2001, they have managed to aged a guerrilla campaign against foreign and Afghan government targets.
NATO-led peacekeepers have warned foreigners to avoid public places including restaurants, and security was especially tight around another building in the city, linked to Dyncorp, the U.S. firm hit by Sunday’s explosion, news reports said. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has told reporters that he is "deeply disturbed" by the attack.
AUTHOR STEFAN J.BOS CONTRIBUTED TO THE STORY
