Let winter aid through - UN

2008-10-06 18:40

Kabul - The UN special representative in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, appealed on Monday to leaders of a Taliban-led insurgency to allow aid workers to distribute food aid ahead of winter.

Eide said the militants' agreement to allow medical teams to reach children in a polio immunisation drive last month should be the basis for other humanitarian action.

"We will be in the process over the coming weeks and months to ensure that food is available across the country to those who need it most," the Norwegian diplomat told reporters.

"I would take this opportunity to appeal to the Taliban and its leaders to ensure access for the distributors and to expand the humanitarian agenda that we should share," he said.

Eide said such efforts did not have political objectives and were not linked to military ambitions to "win hearts and minds" by distributing aid.

"It is a purely neutral humanitarian effort," he said.

There have been more than 120 attacks on humanitarian and development programmes in 2008, according to a report to the UN Security Council last month.

Thirty aid workers have been killed while 92 were abducted, it said.

Several UN World Food Programme aid convoys have also been attacked and torched.

About five million Afghans face food shortages with winter looming, British charity Oxfam has said.

- SAPA