It was noon, September 29, 2001. The dusty road stretched beckoningly before them as twenty-five brightly coloured and decorated trucks wheeled out of Peshawar, Pakistan. The drivers picked up speed and the tightly packed trucks groaned under the weight of their precious cargo. The travelling convoy triggered
smiles, waves and shouts of encouragement from the people they passed on the way.

UNICEF's convoy leader Hermione Youngs grinned and waved back. But her smile masked a hidden anxiety. Dangers lay ahead high mountain travel, a fast encroaching winter and a hostile country ravaged by drought, war, famine, and a proud, fierce people swept
up in a new terror that drew a battle line in the sand that stretched all around the globe. Ms. Youngs knew that it would take every truck, every four-wheel
drive vehicle and the determination of hundreds of porters to get the desperately needed relief supplies to families in the remote Badakhshan region of northeastern Afghanistan before winter set
in and roads became impassable. And it would take the strength and endurance of every horse and donkey they had managed to secure to carry the supplies over the formidable Shah Saleem mountains.

Ms. Youngs was no slouch when it came to planning convoys. As a UNICEF Education Consultant with extensive experience in Afghanistan, she had organised convoys over the same route in three of the past four years trucking educational materials for Afghan children. But this year was different. The war against terror had turned millions of Afghan residents into refugees. Without help, they face certain death.

UNICEF decided to add 110 tonnes of high-energy food, medicines, blankets, clothes, shoes, tents, tarps, hygiene kits and other emergency supplies to the regular shipment of 90 tonnes of educational materials that included 'school-in-a-box' packages for 70,000 children and 13,000 storybooks in the Dari language spoken by the Afghan people.

"I know it's going to be a very difficult trip," Ms. Youngs acknowledged as the convoy got underway. "But it might be our last chance. The snows have already started." The convoy would first travel 450 km to Chitral in northern Pakistan where the 200 tonnes of supplies would be transferred to 98 four-wheel drive vehicles for the journey to the border village of Shah Saleem at an altitude of 3,800 metres (12,300 feet). The supplies would then be transferred onto 700 horses and donkeys that would be led over the treacherous 4,500 metre (14,600 feet) Shah Saleem pass for the onward trek across the Zeebak plain to Faizabad, the provincial capital of Badakhshan in northern Afghanistan".

"The total journey was about 800 km," explained Gordon Weiss in a telephone interview from his UNICEF Information office in Islamabad. "It was the most complicated convoy we've organised and involved hundreds of local people from about 1,000 villages along the way. We offered $80, about 4,500 rupees (Pakistan currency), for the use of each horse or donkey. It was a very high monthly salary, a very good money earner for the villagers for the few days that the animals would be used. A public servant is paid about $60 a month. But it was very hard work. They had to
be quick footed and there was an air of fear....".

At that altitude in the cold, rarified air, a simple chore
becames a challenge. "(The donkeys) all worked very hard," Ms. Youngs reported. "Some donkeys could take up to 100 kilos and some horses up to 200 kilos. It was very difficult when we went through the Shah Saleem pass. Because of the altitude, we suffered from the lack of oxygen. The first 300 donkeys and horses crossed the border into Afghanistan at 8:30 am today
(October 5th). The convoy of 800 boys and men and 300 heavily laden animals stretched for 10 km as it wound its way up the final stretch of brown, rocky, barren mountain slope on the Pakistan side of the border into the Shah Saleem pass, and down into Afghanistan. There are also some Afghan women dressed in burkas who had come from Faizabad to accompany the convoy from Shah Saleem to Faizabad."

It took about five days for all 700 horses and donkeys to cross the pass. On Wednesday October 10, the convoy arrived safely at its destination without incident or injury. It was the first of more than a dozen convoys that UNICEF has organised to pre-position emergency supplies in Afghanistan and neighbouring countries to deliver aid to 1.25 million people. The convoy to
Faizabad was one of five 'children's winter convoys' that also delivered supplies to Kabul, Herat, Jalalabad and Kandahar. The success of a convoy of this magnitude could never have been achieved without a massive team effort. The sense of adventure, purpose and enthusiasm was infectious. From the Pakistani
authorities who provided security guards on the road to the young village boys who came to help with the donkeys, there was a single minded determination to accomplish the mission. Failure to help the Afghan children was not an option.

In an Afghan village, a scantily clad child kicks at a stone. He is hungry. He is cold. He is scared. He has never heard of New York. He knows nothing of North America. To him, terror is the fear in his mother's eyes as she tries to protect her children. To UNICEF he is a precious little human who needs, and will get, help.