ISLAMABAD, Jan 17: Two World Food Programme (WFP) trucks, carrying emergency food supplies in northern Afghanistan, have been robbed at gunpoint, highlighting continuing security concerns in the region, a spokesman for the UN aid agency said here on Thursday.

The trucks, each taking 20 tonnes of wheat to Baghlan province, were held up in Aibak city on Tuesday.

“A group of armed people stopped the Afghan drivers of the two commercial trucks, beat them and took one truck to a downtown street in Aibak where they distributed the food to the people in that area,” the spokesman, Khaled Mansour, said.

The second truck was taken to a nearby military unit and both vehicles were later recovered empty, he told a news conference.

“There is no justification whatsoever for forcibly taking food aid, even if it ends up with civilians,” Mansour said.—AFP