SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Aid is slow to be delivered in Afghanistan, where several powerful earthquakes struck last week. The U.N. Humanitarian Office in Afghanistan says 441 villages are in the affected area. More than 2,000 people have died. Thousands more are injured, according to the Taliban government. They've launched a domestic fundraising campaign and are also asking for international aid. Nesar Abdiani emigrated to the United States from Afghanistan, but he still has family in Jalalabad and Kunar - places that are near the epicenter of the quakes. He is also vice president of the Afghan Cultural Society in California. Joins us now from Concord, California. Thanks so much for being with us.
NESAR ABDIANI: Thank you.
SIMON: And may I ask, have you been able to reach your family? Do you know anything about them?
ABDIANI: Yes. Yes, so we have immediate family in Jalalabad and also in Kunar Province, where it was the center of the earthquake. My second cousin, unfortunately, they passed away. The roof collapsed on them. But the remaining of my family members, they are OK. They're alive, thanks God. But their houses are not livable.
SIMON: What has life been like for your family day to day?
ABDIANI: You know, when it rain it pours. Unfortunately, after the earthquake, there was a rain as well, too. And they're all living in the yard and the street and the farm. No sanitation. There's absolutely nothing there. So we have to immediately send some tents for them to just cover them because they're calling us and they're saying, hey, we need this. And the earthquake started around, like, after midnight, and everybody just walked out of their rooms. So their clothing is all inside the house, and they're scared even to just go inside the house to get additional clothing. The kids, when they left the houses, they don't have no shoes. So we have to immediately send approximately around 350 to 400 sandals and some socks to just cover their feet while they're walking on those environment. And the environment is not a smooth street or concrete or anything like that. It's a farmland. There's scorpion, snake and anything else that you can imagine that it exists there.
SIMON: We know that there have been many losses. Have people living in the area where many people have died been able to take care of them?
ABDIANI: Unfortunately, the Afghanistan, you know, especially Kunar Province, we do not have too much land. It's majority of them mountain. Digging a hole there to put these dead body there, it is becoming a massive challenge, and people are exhausted. So even they spoke to some priests, and they did allow them to put two bodies in one grave because they couldn't dig anymore. You can't imagine it. When I saw the video when my cousin - they were just showing me on a live, and it was just - I couldn't watch it. Two babies in one grave or a father and a son or mother and a daughter in one grave. The little farmland that they had it, it's full with cemetery now.
SIMON: Mr. Abdiani, may I ask what it's like for you to feel so tied to events and concern for your family and yet be so far away?
ABDIANI: It's a mixed feeling. It's just a feel of anger, disappointment and fear. We cannot fly there to go help out. Financially, sending money for Afghan individual, it's a huge challenge for whatever political reason that it is in Afghanistan. We cannot help, and we want to help.
SIMON: You mentioned the political difficulty of helping. Help us understand that.
ABDIANI: Well, it's a Taliban. They have a lot of restriction. Like, we - desperately, we need female doctors in that province. There's none. We don't have too many womans doctors in Afghanistan anymore. As you guys probably know, when the Taliban came, they closed the schools for womans. So most of them, they left the country. But any number that they are still in Afghanistan, they want to volunteer. They want to go to those camps. They want to go to that ground zero to help out, but they are being turned around. That's what we heard by Taliban. They're not allowed to go there.
Last what I heard is that they're trying to even stop some of the individuals that they're bringing fund and they're bringing money or whatever they need to devastated people. They're putting stop on that, and they want the fund, everything go through the government, raising other questions. Are they going to distribute the fund or not? How they going to distribute? How they going to help out? Are they going to help one village and not the other village?
SIMON: As you know, the United States has made significant cuts to foreign aid funding to many countries, including Afghanistan. What does your family say is most needed now that the world can provide?
ABDIANI: They need help for the recovery. Those houses have to be built. The school has to be built. The streets have to be built. The mosque has to be built. And then the main fear that the Afghan community here and in Afghanistan they have is, how many orphans are survive or how many survivor are there. We see the videos and I talk to my cousins, constantly, and they're saying is, yes, we found one or two child in this house or in that house. So that is the biggest challenge right now that the whole community is fearing that what's going to happen to the survivor and how is going to be the recovery process. I'm pleading on behalf of Afghan community, help Afghans. Afghan been through a lot in the past over 40 years, war after war after war. We need your help.
SIMON: Nesar Abdiani, thanks so much for speaking with us.
ABDIANI: Thank you. I greatly appreciate that to take our voice to your audience. That means a lot to us.
(SOUNDBITE OF AFGHAN ENSEMBLE'S "INSTRUMENTAL ROBAB") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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