Military

DATE=11/16/01

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=U-N / AFGHAN / AID (L-ONLY)

NUMBER=2-283244

BYLINE=DALE GAVLAK

DATELINE=GENEVA

INTERNET=YES

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: United Nations agencies are beginning to move their foreign staff back into Afghanistan as they push to increase humanitarian aid deliveries before the onset of winter. As V-O-A's Dale Gavlak reports from Geneva, U-N relief agencies had evacuated their international staff from Afghanistan soon after the September 11th terrorist attacks.

TEXT: The resident coordinator for the World Health Organization is returning to his post in Afghanistan on Saturday. Officials from the United Nations refugee agency and the Organization for International Migration (O-I-M) also will be returning.

O-I-M spokesman Jean-Philippe Chauzy explains.

/// CHAUZY ACT ///

It's high time that the local staff, which has been performing quite splendidly over the last few months, gets the assistance from the international staffers.

/// END ACT ///

Foreign aid workers are moving back into Afghanistan to jump-start what aid workers say could be one of the most challenging humanitarian efforts since the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

Ron Redmond of the U-N refugee agency says the agency's local Afghan staff members are resuming their activities.

/// OPT /// He hailed the return of U-N-H-C-R's four female Afghan staff members to the Kabul office. The Taleban had barred them from relief work in the capital five years ago. /// END OPT ///

He says that as security permits, U-N-H-C-R will quickly re-establish its international presence throughout Afghanistan.

/// REDMOND ACT 1 ///

Recent territorial gains by the Northern Alliance have created the potential for wide-scale aid deliveries to northern Afghanistan, reducing fear of a humanitarian crisis, at least in some of those areas, during the winter. But we remain very concerned about a possible influx of new refugees into Pakistan, especially from southern areas of Afghanistan.

/// END ACT ///

However, he discounted any large-scale return of Afghans from either Pakistan or Iran at this moment.

/// REDMOND ACT 2 ///

We do not envisage, for example, a Kosovo-style rush to go back. The infrastructure, the winter, the continuing insecurity: all of these things will probably prohibit that.

/// OPT /// U-N-H-C-R is launching what we call a mass information program aimed at the refugee population, and that will be providing them with regularly updated information on conditions in possible areas of return inside Afghanistan. /// END OPT ///

/// END ACT ///

Meanwhile, the U-N Human Rights Commission expert on extra-judicial executions, (Asma Jahangir), called for an independent investigation of reported executions of large numbers of unarmed civilians. (Signed)

NEB/DG/TW/JWH