Taliban Seize U.N. Offices, Food Aid in Afghanistan By Tahir Ikram ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - The ruling Taliban have shut down the U.N. Afghan communications network, taken over its office in Kandahar and seized 1,400 tons of U.N. food aid, crippling the world body's aid operations in the country, U.N. officials said Monday. ``We condemn this serious violation and call on the Taliban to ensure the safety of our staff and to allow aid workers to continue their humanitarian work,'' World Food Program (WFP) spokesman Khaled Mansour told Reuters. ``This is a serious development which could disrupt, if not completely stop, our food distribution,'' said Mansour, adding that the WFP office and warehouse had also been taken over by the Taliban. Foreign U.N. staff left Afghanistan last week for security reasons but the 700 Afghan staff had carried on with most of the world body's work. Now that appears to have more or less stopped. Spokeswoman Stephanie Bunker told a news conference in Islamabad that the U.N. office in Kandahar, spiritual capital of the Taliban, had been seized Monday and that the Taliban had also taken over some offices of non-governmental organizations which also provide relief services. The communications equipment was shut down in both Kandahar and the capital Kabul last Friday. The United Nations has asked for permission to use at least one high frequency radio to keep contact with the outside world but has had no reply, she added. ``While some activities are going on, most U.N. activities have been disrupted or have ceased,'' Bunker said. She said the United Nations had told Afghan local staff not to use communications equipment because of Taliban orders and allowed any staff to stop work who wished. ``Under such circumstances most national staff have stopped working,'' she added. Mansour said the WFP had at least three weeks' supplies in Afghanistan, but would not be able to deliver most of it because of curbs on local staff and lack of transport. ``We are calling on the Taliban to allow our national staff to use the communications system so that they can stay in contact with us and carry out their work,'' Mansour said. WFP FEARS SEVERE FOOD SHORTAGE Mansour said the situation was likely to deteriorate and the WFP feared up to 1.6 million people would be without food by December, particularly in the north which had been badly hit by a severe drought, now in its third year. ``We will have severe food shortages,'' he added. The United Nations has warned of a ``humanitarian disaster'' as Afghans flee the cities for rural areas or Iran and Pakistan, fearing U.S. strikes on the Taliban for protecting Osama bin Laden, accused of instigating hijacked aircraft attacks in New York and Washington on September 11. Bunker said U.N. agencies were preparing contingency plans to help destitute Afghans but the lack of communication with local staff made the job increasingly difficult. But as conditions deteriorated in Afghanistan, the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said it had made progress in persuading Pakistan to admit refugees sitting on the Afghan side of Baluchistan province's Chaman border post. ``We have a verbal agreement with the authorities that they will be allowed in,'' a UNHCR spokesman told a news conference, adding that the deal covered only the crossing point at Chaman. The United Nations and other aid agencies have said tens of thousands of Afghans are on the move inside the country, hoping to escape expected U.S. attacks. Over two million Afghans already live as refugees in Pakistan and about 1.5 million in Iran, victims of nearly 30 years of conflict and a more recent drought. ``We hope to start screening refugees tomorrow (Tuesday),'' the UNHCR's Rupert Colville told Reuters Television in Quetta, Baluchistan's capital. He said they would be taken to an abandoned refugee camp called Dara, five miles from Chaman, which can house 20,000 refugees. Colville said that although the UNHCR had not seen massive numbers of refugees crossing into Pakistan, a large-scale inflow was possible. ``The potential is there for a massive crisis,'' he added.
