Mr Benn where has our £400m Afghan aid money gone?

London, Jan 17 : Hundreds of millions of pounds in British aid has been pumped into Afghanistan to help children like little Dawoud. And yet he is dying.

Head swollen, stomach distended and muscles wasting away, he is in the advanced stages of malnutrition - and so are thousands more like him.

Enraged charity workers told yesterday how the British aid that could - and should - be saving them is failing to get through.

And they point the finger of blame squarely at Britain's International Development Secretary, Hilary Benn.

Alarmingly, it is not just children like Dawoud who are paying the price for Britain's aid failures, but also our soldiers in the southern province of Helmand.

The appalling lack of food there, say the aid workers, is driving local men to join the Taliban because it is the only way they can feed their families.

Norine MacDonald, president of the Paris-based Senlis Council, one of the leading agencies in the region, said: "Hilary Benn has spent nearly £400million in Afghanistan.

"Where has that money gone? It is certainly not reaching the people who need it most.

"Mr Benn should explain himself or stand down."

The organisation claims Mr Benn's department has staff on the ground in Afghanistan but they do not leave the relative safety of their offices in the capital, Kabul.

Instead, the British aid is given to the Afghan government to distribute - even though the administration is riddled with corruption.

The agency provided exclusive pictures to support its claims and cites the case of two-year-old Dawoud, who is unlikely to live to see his third birthday.

Dawoud is just one of the hidden victims of the war on terror which is now bringing famine and disease to the region.

His father, Khudinazar, brought him to Kharoty, one of several hastily thrown- up mud-hut camps just a few miles from Camp Bastion, the British Army's multi-million-pound headquarters in Helmand.

Driven from their homes by the heavy fighting, a devastating drought and the destruction of local farmers' poppy crops, hundreds of Afghans are heading to these unofficial refugee camps to wait in vain for international help.

The camps have no electricity, no fresh water, no doctors, no schools and little of anything else.

Aid workers say the only escape for the desperate and starving is to join the Taliban insurgents, who promise food, shelter and a 'joining bonus' of $200 (£101) - a king's ransom in Afghanistan.

In Kandahar, Afghanistan's second largest city, medical staff are also struggling to cope.

The child malnutrition ward in the Mirwais Hospital has become a dying room.

The Senlis Council documented last week how staff at the hospital tried to calm a starving baby girl, holding her in their arms and trying to rock her to sleep.

Her eyes sunken and her arms and legs wasted, there was little the doctors and nurses could do for her.

"She has been here for several days. It is highly likely she will die," said one doctor.

"There is insufficient food and medical care in the ward,' he added.

"Many of the children here will die. We really have no way of treating them.

"The mothers are with the babies in the ward and they themselves have no food."

The World Food Programme says 2.5million Afghans are in danger of starvation and five million more are not getting enough to eat.

The UN body's assessment is stark. It says 61 per cent of children under five are suffering from malnutrition and nearly seven per cent are described as 'wasted'. The numbers are growing.

The main killer is kwashiorkor - a type of childhood malnutrition first seen in Africa, which is believed to be caused by insufficient protein.

More than half the children affected die and those who survive suffer permanent stunted growth. It can also retard mental development.

"Make no mistake, this is a famine," says Ms MacDonald, who has spent much of the past three years in Helmand.

"Children are starving to death. There is no food and virtually no foreign aid. People here are being left with a choice.

"Either join the insurgency and get money to feed your family or watch them die."

The Canadian former lawyer, whose work is funded by Swiss philanthropist Stephan Schmidheiny - reputedly worth £1.6billion - is adamant that the blame lies with Britain's Department for International Development and its counterparts in the US and Canada.

"DFID has deserted Britain's own troops," she said.

"Millions of pounds of aid that it has poured into the country is simply not getting through to the south.

"That is fuelling the insurgency. I have met men in the camps. They are not terrorists. They are not Taliban.

"But they end up going to fight because they need to feed their families. British troops are dying as a direct result."

Helmand's governor, Mohammed Daud, is also frustrated by the UK aid department's lack of progress.

He said: "Promises to get projects up and running have not been kept and there hasn't even been a DFID representative in Helmand for two months."

The Department has around 18 staff at any one time in Afghanistan, but the security situation means they are mainly confined to Kabul.

Last night a spokesman insisted DFID was doing all it could and was committed to spend £217million on aid for Afghanistan over the next two years - more than £20million in Helmand alone during the next 12 months.

He said: "The UK has provided food aid and essential items like soap and blankets for 3,000 internally displaced families in Helmand.

"This was distributed by the Government of Afghanistan. UK officials are monitoring the situation.

"The UN has reassured us that in Helmand the basic needs of these families are being met."

He added: "DFID has also committed £1million towards the Government of Afghanistan's drought-response efforts."

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SA/EN