November 28, 2001	Wednesday	Ramazan 12, 1422

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ISLAMABAD, Nov 27: The United Nations security officer and staff of an international NGO have left Mazar-i-Sharif following insecurity, lawlessness and violence, UN officials said at a news conference here on Tuesday.

The officials also reported lack of security in Kandahar and Kunduz in addition to Mazar-i-Sharif, all areas under the control of Northern Alliance since the ouster of the Taliban.

Speaking at the news conference, UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Afghanistan spokesperson, Hasan Ferdous, said the UN security officer in Mazar-i-Sharif was forced to withdraw to Termez due to continuing violence.

Expressing concern over the security situation in Mazar-i- Sharif, he said an international agency has also reported the withdrawal of two of its staff from the city following recent clashes. “We are considering different access routes into the north from Turkmenistan due to volatility in the north and redeploying staff elsewhere,” he said.

The spokesperson said that due to continuing insecurity, the roads from Herat to Kandahar as well as from Spin Boldak to Kandahar remain largely inaccessible. He said that no trucks carrying relief goods have left Quetta for Afghanistan during the past two weeks. As many as 238,000 people trapped in Kandahar depend on food supplies provided by the UN, he said.

The World Food Programme (WFP) spokesperson, Lindsey Davies, said that the swathes of insecurity and lawlessness in the north around Mazar-i-Sharif, Kunduz and in the south around Kandahar are posing challenges for delivery of food assistance.

“For the time being in Mazar and Kunduz, there is no access to conflict and drought-affected populations.” She said that WFP is extremely concerned that the situation in Mazar-i-Sharif is not stable enough to allow UN agencies to position international staff there.

The city is a strategic logistics node for access to the central and northeast of Afghanistan, where there are large groups of people in need resulting from economic collapse compounded by three years of drought, she said.

About displacement of people, the WFP spokesperson said a new pocket of several thousand internally displaced persons has emerged in the province of Badghis. She said the preliminary information reveals that the displaced people have travelled from Mazar-i-Sharif to escape the fighting there.

Some of the people walked for as long as two weeks and were in poor shape with little shelter or food.

Referring to the security situation in Kandahar and Spin Boldak, Ms Lindsey said the ongoing security situation around Kandahar and south to the border at Spin Boldak remains tense.

However, she said, plans are still underway to continue with the food distribution to 16,800 people in the camps.

Expressing concern about the plight of the people fleeing areas of conflict, the spokesperson said that the WFP is concerned for the safety and well-being of hundreds of thousands of people returning to their rural areas only to find no homes, no livestock and no crops, and others are fleeing with what little they have.