|
U.N. Warns Of Worsening Afghan Crisis As Fighting Escalates
HERAT, Afghanistan, Feb 14 (News Agencies) - Afghanistan's humanitarian crisis will deepen in the coming months if the civil war continues, the U.N. warned Wednesday after major battles in central Bamiyan province.
United Nations Deputy Coordinator for Afghanistan Antonio Donini said another half a million people were desperately in need, in addition to the 500,000 already in displacement camps around the country.
Speaking in the wake of the opposition's capture of the key central city of Bamiyan from the ruling Taliban militia overnight Wednesday, he said continued fighting would drive more people into the camps in the coming months.
"Some of these [500,000 in remote villages] are potential IDPs [internally displaced people], particularly if conflict picks up again," he said.
"We are very concerned that this year the winter was quite mild and the fighting has not stopped. If areas change hands there will continue to be more displacement.
"We're talking about at least another year of the IDP crisis, not counting variables such as the intensification of the drought and more fighting."
Some 80,000 people have sought shelter at poorly equipped displacement camps around this western city since mid-2000 due to drought and war.
They are among more than 600,000 who have fled their homes during the period, including some 150,000 who have sought refugee status in neighboring Pakistan.
At least 170 people have died of exposure to freezing temperatures in the camps around Herat in recent weeks, according to U.N. officials, but international emergency assistance has only just started to arrive.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan recently appealed to both sides of the civil war to stop fighting to allow the displaced people to return to their villages in time for the next harvest just months away.
But the opposition's victory in Bamiyan overnight, representing the Taliban Islamic militia's biggest setback in more than a year, only underlines the difficulties relief agencies face here.
"I think it's clear that the warring parties are not particularly receptive at this time," Donini said.
Tens of thousands of people have been made homeless around Yakawlang district in Bamiyan province since opposition forces loyal to ex-defense minister Ahmad Shah Masood captured it earlier this month.
Thousands more were forced to flee fighting in the northeast late last year, including about 10,000 who are stranded on a remote river island near the closed Tajik border without international assistance.
U.N. Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Kenzo Oshima is due here Thursday to inspect the camps and meet local Taliban and U.N. officials.
Speaking in the capital Kabul Tuesday, Oshima said Afghanistan's humanitarian problems would persist unless the Taliban found a peaceful settlement to the conflict.
"No amount of international support can replace the effort that the Afghan people themselves and the leadership can do by bringing a peaceful solution to the conflict," he said.
But the Taliban Wednesday ordered the United Nations Special Mission (UNSMA), which has been trying to organize peace talks between the warring sides, to shut its Kabul office.
The order was in reaction to a U.S. decision to close the Taliban's office in New York in line with fresh U.N. sanctions designed to force the hardline Islamic militia to hand over Osama bin Laden.
|
