01 November 2001
Looting of Aid Agencies in Afghanistan Increases
(Taliban impedes relief as groups persist in humanitarian work)(760)
By Charlene Porter
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- Offices operated by the United Nations refugee agency
were overtaken by armed Taliban soldiers October 31, the latest in a
series of raids on humanitarian facilities by the ruling Afghan
authorities. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports
that no staff members were in the office in Spin Boldak near
Afghanistan's southeast border with Pakistan when it was seized.
"This serious violation of UNHCR premises came just hours after a
meeting between High Commissioner Ruud Lubbers and the Taliban
Ambassador to Pakistan," according to a UNHCR humanitarian update
issued October 31. At that meeting, Lubbers made a request for the
Taliban to stop interference with UNHCR property and staff to allow
its relief work to proceed.
UNHCR is among the leading humanitarian agencies providing assistance
to some 4 million refugees who have fled Afghanistan for neighboring
countries in recent years. The outpouring of the Afghan population
dates back 20 years when the nation fought a war with the Soviet
Union. Ongoing internal strife drove more Afghans from their homes
after that war ended in 1989. In recent years, food shortages caused
by a drought in the region have caused further population
displacement.
The Taliban has also targeted the World Food Program (WFP) on several
occasions, the latest on October 29 when Kabul offices of an
affiliated organization were attacked. WFP reports that four guards on
duty at the relief office were beaten and equipment was removed.
"Looting is becoming more frequent and further incidents were reported
by other aid agencies in the Afghan capital this week," WFP spokesman
Khaled Mansour told reporters in Islamabad.
WFP was among the first humanitarian organizations to report Taliban
harassment. Two of its grain warehouses -- one in Kabul, the other in
Kandahar -- were seized by the Afghan regime October 16. The Taliban
relinquished control of the Kabul facility within days, but still
holds on to the Kandahar storage site. After more than two weeks, WFP
reports now that it has received unconfirmed reports that the grain --
1,600 tons of it -- is gone, along with several vehicles also used in
the relief effort.
WFP proceeds with its work despite these trials. In the final week of
October, 10,000 tons of food were distributed in Afghanistan.
The attacks have come just as humanitarian agencies gear up their
longstanding relief activities in Afghanistan to prepare the
population for rapidly approaching winter. The World Food Program
estimates that up to 7 million people could face food shortages, and
even starvation, this winter.
Amidst that urgency, however, the groups have been subject to looting
and attacks, sometimes directly attributed to Taliban, and sometimes
conducted by unidentified looters.
"The biggest obstacle to getting food and medicine to the people of
Afghanistan is the Taliban," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told
reporters at a briefing October 31.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) reopened one office
in Mazar-e-Sherif in the final days of October, but 2,000 blankets
intended for delivery in camps for the internally displaced were gone.
The facility had first been looted October 15. The IOM also
experienced a Taliban-forced shutdown at another office in Kunduz. It
too has now been allowed to reopen, but vehicles taken from the relief
organization have not been returned.
The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) has been another Taliban
target. Operating a broad network of offices, clinics and schools
primarily in the north, the SCA was ordered to close and stop some of
its humanitarian activities October 19, but now has reopened. Even in
the face of these difficulties, an SCA spokesman told the Integrated
Regional Information Network of the U.N. Office for the Coordination
of Humanitarian Affairs that humanitarian activities are still
operating at "pretty close to 100 percent."
"The emphasis is to get as much assistance, as much food into
Afghanistan as possible, and that's being done through the
international relief agencies, which we are supporting," Douglas
Hunter, acting U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for
Population, Refugees and Migration, said on the program Dialogue. "The
United States is a major contributor both of money but also of food --
something like 80 percent of the food that the World Food Program
delivers comes from the United States."
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