Nobel Peace Prize Winning Doctors Group Calls US Afghanistan Aid 'Military Propaganda'

8 October 2001

Paris ­ Nobel Peace Prize winner Medecins Sans Frontieres condemned the humanitarian operation accompanying the U.S.-led strikes on Afghanistan as "military propaganda" designed to justify the strikes.

On Sunday, the United States dropped 37,500 food packages from two planes, destined for starving Afghans. Medicine is also expected to be dropped.

In a statement, the French humanitarian group, known in English as Doctors Without Borders, said the operation "isn't in any way a humanitarian aid operation, but more a military propaganda operation, destined to make international opinion accept the U.S.-led military operation."

"What sense is there in shooting with one hand, and giving medicine with the other?" the group asked.

The United States has a stockpile of some 2 million food packets that each provide at least 2,200 calories per day.

Afghanistan is among the world's poorest countries and has the lowest per-person food intake in the world, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Medecins Sans Frontieres won the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize for its medical relief work in more than 80 countries. Like many international aid groups, it suspended its work in Afghanistan shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

Medecins Sans Frontieres.
Press release. © Copyright 2001 The Associated Press.

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