Raid on convoy confirms delivery problems

22 Nov, 2001 10:45 AM3 mins to read

KABUL - The United Nations has begun handing out blankets, tents and food to Kabul residents made homeless by the United States' bombing campaign in Afghanistan.

But an indication of the difficulties that aid organisations face was demonstrated yesterday when UN spokesman Eric Falt said that armed men had stopped a food convoy of five trucks in southern Afghanistan and seized part of its supplies.

In Kabul, Hojnawab, aged 48, was one of the 120 heads of families to receive aid.

He said his house had been destroyed by a stray bomb just before the Taleban retreated eight days ago.

"My house is near a military base, and one bomb which missed it landed near us," he said.

"I am neither angry nor happy. We know the bombs were aimed at terrorists."

Falt said the pilfered World Food Programme convoy left from the southern town of Spin Boldak and was heading for Herat in the west.

He said the convoy was stopped by unidentified commanders near Shindand, south of Herat.

"Under the threat of arms, they unloaded 185 tonnes of food, which was distributed to the local population," he said.

"The remainder was sent back to [the southern Taleban stronghold of] Kandahar."

The programme aimed to feed six million Afghans this winter and was targeting the "hunger belt" of northern Afghanistan, where war and drought have forced thousands to leave their homes and left many more without food.

Filippo Grandi, of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said the main aim for agencies was to get people displaced by fighting back to their homes where they could be better cared for than in a tent city.

Afghanistan has up to one million internal refugees and three to four million outside the country, according to UN estimates.

Those still in areas where fighting is taking place cannot be reached by Western organisations, because of security concerns.

Even in Kabul, now controlled by the Northern Alliance, many are wary about what will happen if the alliance does not hand over the city to a more broad-based Government.

Hojnawab, happy to receive a tent to shelter his family, said he hoped to get back to work as a truck driver if Kabul remained peaceful.

"For five years under the Taleban I did nothing," he said.

"But they mostly left me alone because I had a beard."

- REUTERS

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