POLITICS-AFGHANISTAN: U.N. Relief Operations Face Security Hazards

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 17 2001 (IPS) - The United Nations is resuming food supplies to Afghanistan even as it expresses fears that humanitarian operations may be hampered by security hazards – mainly unexploded cluster bombs and anti-personnel landmines.

Catherine Bertini, head of the World Food Programme (WFP), told reporters Friday that, despite numerous obstacles, the agency has succeeded in reaching a monthly food aid target of 52,000 metric tons – enough to feed the six million hungry Afghans caught up in the ongoing war.

However, the movement and distribution of these food stocks by the WFP and by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) could be hamstrung by security problems, she warned.

“Whenever security conditions stabilise enough to enable aid workers to go in, WFP seizes this window of opportunituy and sends in as much food as possible,” Bertini said. The other factor that could make or break the United Nations’ humanitarian efforts in coming month will be the weather, she added.

The security hazards have been underscored both by the shifting lines of battle and the hundreds of thousands pieces of unexploded ordnance and anti-personnel landmines strewn about the country.

U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said the world body “remains very concerned” about reports of new landmines being laid by retreating Taliban forces. The U.N. Mine Action Centre has singled out Herat as particularly worrying.

U.N. officials in Islamabad have confirmed one civilian death and three civilian injuries, including two children, from handling unexploded cluster bombs in the villages of Eshaq Sulaiman Zai and Shakar Qala.

The manager of the U.N. de-mining programme told reporters last week coalition forces were providing information on where unexploded ordnance might have fallen or been left behind during strikes.

As the U.S. bombing continued in Kandahar, the maintenance compound of the De-Mining Agency for Afghanistan was hit on Thursday. The agency is part of the U.N. Mine Action Programme. The losses included six buses, five trucks, and more than 300,000 dollars worth of mine clearance equipment.

Nearly 5,000 unexploded and highly volatile cluster bomblets may be littered across areas of Afghanistan targeted by U.S. fighter planes, Mark Hiznay, of Human Rights Watch, said Friday.

“These unexploded bomblets have in effect become anti-personnel landmines,” Hiznay said. “They pose an extreme hazard to civilians, not just now but for years to come.”

Hiznay also said the United States has a special responsibility to clear up the unexploded ordnance once the fighting stops.

He asked the Pentagon to make available the necessary information and resources so that this can be done promptly and safely.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), which led the air strikes on the former Yugoslavia in 1999, eventually provided a database of all the locations where cluster bombs had been used.

Human Rights Watch said that the “fluid situation” in Afghanistan dictates that coalition air forces immediately discontinue the use of cluster munitions.

“Un-uniformed combatants, civilian refugees, and relief personnel are intermingled and some or all of them may be using similar, sometimes commandeered vehicles,” Hiznay said.

“The use of area weapons such as cluster bombs is clearly inappropriate in this situation because any military advantage gained by their use is outweighed by the risks to the civilian population,” he noted.

Last week, a senior U.N. human rights official, Jean Ziegler, criticised the U.S. decision to simultaneously bombard Afghanistan both with cluster bombs and food packages.

The food packets were in yellow-coloured aerodynamic packages that resembled cluster bombs.

Ziegler also highlighted the risk that some food packages would land in minefields, threatening the lives of those who venture to pick them up.

As a result of complaints by the United Nations and relief organisations, the Pentagon announced it would change the colour of the food packages for fear that Afghan men, women, and children might confuse these with the yellow-coloured canisters of unexploded ordnance.