Humanitarian

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"The Aral Sea Area is not just an environmental disaster, but a health and human tragedy as well....The locals joke that if everyone who'd come to study the Aral had brought a bucket of water, the sea would be full by now".

The drying-up of the Sea, and the salt and dust laden air, have had a damaging effect on the health of the people, and the animal and plant life as well. The introduction of pesticides into the rice and cotton fields, and the seepage of the residues back into the rivers, has heavily contaminated the water for thus communities living along the banks of the rivers flowing into the Sea. This has further aggravated people's health. Diseases like anemia, cancer and tuberculosis, and allergies are frequent. Many children are born with defects. Also in the years since the first project was implemented, there has been a continued increase in Typhoid fever, viral hepatitis, TB, and throat cancer in many areas as high as three times the national average. All of these complaints can be attributed either to the reduction in quality and quantity of water resulting from the drying up of the Aral Sea of the spread of toxic dusts and deterioration of the regional climate resulting from the Aral Sea disaster. While sustainable development for the well being of people and the environment they live in is needed in the Aral Sea Area, the immediate humanitarian needs of the population must also be addressed. Unless further action is taken to improve the health, water and hygiene needs of the people living in the Aral Sea Area, the benefits of today's sustainable development ideas will reach fewer and fewer people in the next millennium. The Aral Sea Area is not just an environmental disaster, but a health and human tragedy as well. The Aral Sea Area has one of the highest levels of (TB) in

all of Europe and the former Soviet Union and one of the highest levels of anemia in the world. The salt concentration of the available water for consumption is one of the highest in the world. For people to lead a productive life in "harmony with nature," they must first be healthy. To date millions of dollars worth of assessments and visits have been made to the Aral Sea region, resulting in very little direct humanitarian action in the area. The situation in the Aral Sea Area requires the direct provision of immediate public health assistance that is targeted to meet the greatest need and conducted through existing channels. The environmental degradation and economic decline and resulting social and health affects around the dying Aral Sea will result in further premature deaths and even environmental refugees or ecological migrants if action is not taken now to alleviate the affects. A CIS conference on refugees and migrants held in Geneva in 1996, estimated that nearly 700 000 people have already been forced to flee their homes in the former Soviet Union, as a result of ecological disasters like the nuclear explosion in Chernobyl and the Aral Sea Area Disaster. The number of displaced people in the Aral Sea Area was estimated at above 100,000. In Kazakhstan alone, 42,000 people have moved either further inside Kazakhstan or to other CIS countries. The indirect links between the environmental disaster and human health outcomes abound. The direct relationship between the environmental disaster and human health is not widely known, in the least agreed upon, given the magnitude and relative uniqueness of the situation. Further objective research that aims to directly impact positively on human health is required. However, in the meantime, certain health facts are known and must be acted upon.