PESHAWAR, July 28: The United Nations’ agencies are reluctant to resume field operations in the NWFP and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), despite firm assurances by the provincial government that fool-proof security cover would be provided to their field staff.
“Although the NWFP government has extended full assurances regarding security, but the UN is re-assessing its security arrangements in all target areas of the province and Fata,” a representative of the World Health Organisation (WHO) told Dawn here on Monday.
Official sources said the federal and provincial governments took serious note of the firing on a UN vehicle and assured the world body that the government would adopt appropriate measures to curb such incidents in future.
All the UN bodies including Unicef, WFP and UNHCR suspended their field operations in the NWFP and Fata for indefinite period when a WHO vehicle came under fire in Patwarbala on July 23, 2003, on the outskirts of Peshawar.
Two workers of the WHO including a doctor escaped narrowly in the firing while the vehicle was partially damaged. An FIR had been registered against unidentified persons and the police station concerned has yet to identify the culprits.
The sources said Federal Secretary Health Ijaz Rahim, NWFP Chief Secretary Ijaz Qureshi, provincial IGP Rifat Pasha and other senior officials met the UN representatives here on Monday and requested them to re-start field work.
“We did not receive security clearance from the headquarters,” the WHO official said. He said Chief Secretary Ijaz Qureshi firmly assured the UN bodies that the culprits who targeted the WHO vehicle would be arrested within a few days and the police department had started investigations in this regard.
The WHO and the NWFP government are jointly working in 23 sectors including health and education in the province. But the officials said the field work suspension would not affect activities in the target areas.
The sources said the Islamabad-based head of the UN security network was scheduled to arrive in Peshawar on Monday evening to discuss security-related matters with the quarters concerned. They said the UN bodies were likely to re-start activities in the province by the end of week after reviewing its internal security arrangements.
The UNHCR officials said that despite suspension of field operations, repatriation-related activities were continued at Iris Verification Centre near Peshawar on Monday.