In Kabul, air pollution a bigger killer than war
Kabul (AFP) June 9, 2011 – War may kill thousands of civilians a year in Afghanistan, but choking air pollution in the capital Kabul is more deadly, experts say. Signs of the silent killer — pollutants emitted by old cars, poor quality fuel and people burning trash — are everywhere on the city’s chaotic streets. […] The city’s primitive and over-stretched hospitals are forced to treat ever increasing numbers of people with respiratory problems. “I’ve been sick for three years,” said Malalai, an Afghan mother of nine being treated at the Jamhuriat hospital, one of the city’s biggest. “When I talk, I get breathless after two or three minutes. I have chest pains when I try to breathe. I can’t walk or stand for a long time and I have no energy.” The figures are stark. Around 3,000 people per year die of air pollution in Kabul, the National Environment Protection Agency said last year. By comparison, the United Nations says that 2,777 civilians were killed in the war across Afghanistan in 2010. There are several main causes of air pollution, but underpinning them all is Kabul’s rapid expansion as people fled to the capital in search of relative stability amid fighting in many rural areas. The city was designed for about one million people but is now home to around five million, a figure which the Kabul municipality says has doubled in six years. […] The health ministry estimates that the number of Afghans suffering from respiratory problems has trebled over six years to around 480,000. […] Ghulam Mohammad Malikyar, a senior advisor to the National Environment Protection Agency, said: “We’re still struggling to put environmental issues and the environment as a priority in national and international strategies. “The country was at war for the past 30 years and there was very little control over the environment, there was no environmental protection at all.” […] Erfanullah Shifa, a doctor at the Jamhuriat hospital, said up to 20 people a day were registering with respiratory problems. “If air pollution keeps rising the way it is now, Afghan people will face a health disaster in the near future,” Shifa said.
