UZBEKISTAN: STARVATION AND A RAPIDLY COLLAPSING ENVIRONMENT HAUNTS THE NORTHERN UZBEK REGION ONCE A SOVIET ECONOMIC PLANNERS DREAM
Record ID:
588602
UZBEKISTAN: STARVATION AND A RAPIDLY COLLAPSING ENVIRONMENT HAUNTS THE NORTHERN UZBEK REGION ONCE A SOVIET ECONOMIC PLANNERS DREAM
- Title: UZBEKISTAN: STARVATION AND A RAPIDLY COLLAPSING ENVIRONMENT HAUNTS THE NORTHERN UZBEK REGION ONCE A SOVIET ECONOMIC PLANNERS DREAM
- Date: 21st March 2002
- Summary: (U5) NUKUS, UZBEKISTAN (RECENT) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. MV: RED CRESCENT WORKERS DRIVE TRACTOR WITH FOOD AID INTO VILLAGE / VILLAGERS LOOKING ON (3 SHOTS) 0.13 2. MV/SCU'S: RED CRESCENT WORKERS UNLOAD BAGS OF RICE (3 SHOTS) 0.25 3. VARIOUS: VILLAGERS WALK INTO DISTRIBUTION CENTRE, RECEIVE AID (10 SHOTS) 1.07 4. SV: (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) SIFATDIN RAZOV, PENSIONER, SAYING: "There isn't any water. If there was water then we could work and live off of our own labour and we wouldn't need this food aid." 1.17 5. PAN: VILLAGER RIDING DONKEY AND TAKING AWAY FOOD AID 1.24 (U5) ARAL SEA SHORE, UZBEKISTAN (SOVIET UNION) (FILE) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) (MONOCHROME) 6. LV: FISHING SHIPS ON SEA 1.27 7. VARIOUS: FISHERMEN PULLING IN NETS LOADED WITH FISH / FISH 94 SHOTS) 1.36 (U5) ARAL SEA SHORE, UZBEKISTAN (RECENT) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 8. SLV: BOAT MAROONED ON DRIED-UP SEASHORE 1.41 9. PAN: DESERT AREA WHERE SEA ONCE WAS 1.51 10. CU: (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) DALAT KAIPBERGENOV, DEPARTMENT HEAD OF THE AGRICULTURAL MINISTRY OF KARAKALPKIA, SAYING "Their life is connected to their gardens and their livestock. Each year, the fertile area dries up more and more. We need to supply them water reserves before spring. It's almost springtime and they don't have their water." 2.22 11. WS/LV: ABANDONED GREENHOUSE (2 SHOTS) 2.31 12. VARIOUS: ROWS OF ABANDONED FARM BUILDINGS (3 SHOTS) 2.43 13. SV: NURSE CARRYING BABY IN HOSPITAL CORRIDOR 2.51 14. VARIOUS WOMEN WITH SMALL CHILDREN (2 SHOTS) 3.01 15. SCU: SICK CHILD LYING IN BED 3.05 16. SCU: (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) OGARZUL NIZAMADINOVA, HEAD OF CHILDREN'S SECTION, SAYING: "Our children are suffering mostly from anaemic blood and respiratory problems. This is probably caused by environmental factors because conditions are so dry with the drought and the environment is unhealthy. Our mothers are also suffering mostly from anaemia." 3.32 17. VARIOUS YOUNG BABY CRYING (2 SHOTS) 3.45 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 5th April 2002 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: NUKUS, ARAL SEA SHORE, UZBEKISTAN
- Country: Uzbekistan
- Reuters ID: LVADBXGEXU3314LJ71K3VGAKPULQ
- Story Text: Soviet economic planners sought to make the northern
region of Uzbekistan into a cotton-exporting economic
giant.
Decades later, in independent Uzbekistan, the anticipated
boom has turned into a bitter bust. Starvation haunts the land
and the environment is rapidly collapsing.
The arrival of Red Crescent food aid is perhaps the
most-awaited event for the residents of Nukus, the bleak
regional capital.
The donated rice, flour, salt and cooking oil is not just
helping people in the northern region of this ex-Soviet
republic--it is keeping them alive.
Villagers had walked over 10 km by foot to get their
share of the aid, leaving behind their collective farms which
are unable to feed them.
Like pensioner Sifatdin Razov, most of the villagers blame
a recent drought for their woes.
"There isn't any water. If there was water then we could
work and live off of our own labour and we wouldn't need this
food aid," said the former teacher.
But there are also wider reasons behind the crisis; not
war and not a natural disaster but sustained cotton growing
and ill-planned irrigation have created this disaster.
The Aral Seashore region of this land was once a fertile
area with crops and good fishing.
But the Aral Sea has been dying since 1961 and intensive
farming of the basin area around it is one of the biggest
reasons. Soviet planners built gigantic irrigation networks to
divert water from the rivers running into the Aral Sea to
water expanded cotton fields. They also poured thousands of
tonnes of pesticides, fertilisers and other chemicals into the
fields, polluting the water as it flowed back into the Aral
Sea.
But now there isn't an Aral Sea where it once was.
So much water was taken out of the rivers that they no
longer reached the sea.
The Aral Sea began shrinking and dying--in the past years
it has retracted at even greater rates than before.
And now regional officials worry that there will not be
enough water for crops this spring.
"Their life is connected to their gardens and their
livestock. Each year, the fertile area dries up more and more.
We need to supply them water reserves before spring. It's
almost springtime and they don't have their water," said Dalat
Kaipbergenov, department head of the agricultural ministry of
Karakalpkia.
The human toll of this disaster is frightening.
Air quality is atrocious, full of dust, chemicals and
salt. Water quality continues to deteriorate.
The drought has a direct impact on diseases of the
kidneys, limbs and respiratory infections. And almost 85
percent of the million some residents are anaemic.
Babies are born into a difficult life with a penalty of
bad health.
Newborns struggle for each breath at the regional
hospital.
"Our children are suffering mostly from anaemic blood and
respiratory problems This is probably caused by environmental
factors because conditions are so dry with the drought and the
environment is unhealthy. Our mothers are also suffering
mostly from anaemia," says the head of the hospital's
children's ward.
Ironically, this disaster is unfolding as Uzbekistan has
begun receiving U.S. cash for becoming a key ally in the
United States post-September anti-terrorist coalition.
But there is no evidence so far that these sickly newborns
are seeing any benefit.
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