Updated on 1/16/2002 9:39:58 AM
HERAT (Agencies): It was hard to say whether the tears smearing the face of Leila's newborn baby were the child's or the mother's.Wiping at them, the displaced Afghan woman wondered aloud if her mud-brick house would stand up to the heavy rain inundating the refugee camp. Leila gave birth to her sixth child Saturday, splattered by rain leaking through the roof of her makeshift home. The 25-year-old, who like many Afghans uses only one name, said her family of eight must share four blankets.
Rain, storms and cold have hit southwestern Afghanistan, making life miserable at the four refugee camps around Herat, the provincial capital. They shelter hundreds of thousands of displaced Afghans who already had fled snow and famine in Badghis and Ghor provinces in the northwest.
International groups have warned of a possible humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan, where some areas have suffered years of drought in addition to the disruptions of war.
One remote northern area received no food at all until recently, forcing residents to eat grass before help arrived.
Now nearly a week of downpours has caused hundreds of mud-brick hovels to collapse - and others to flood.
On the mountain road to the Minaret One camp just outside Herat, cars and trucks are stuck in mud and water, and some are overturned on the roadside.
In Maslakh, the largest camp, west of Herat, thousands of hungry kids with small pots gathered around Afghan aid workers Saturday to get a taste of halwas a mixture of wheat flour, sugar and oil.
=A9 Copyright 2001 The Frontier Post