UN restricts staff movements in Kandahar after car bombing

The United Nations in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar has told its staff to stay home and banned all street movements in the city until further notice after a car bomb exploded outside the office of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) on Tuesday. “All UN international staff are now in their guesthouses and local staff have been sent home. They will remain there until further notification,” David Singh, a UNAMA media relation’s officer told IRIN, on Wednesday, noting, however, that UN operations had not stopped and were not relocating outside of Kandahar. The attack comes less than three months after an explosion ripped through the UN's Iraq headquarters in Baghdad, killing 22 people, including the UN's Senior Envoy in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello. Singh said all UN agencies and NGOs [national and international aid agencies] staff [in Kandahar] were also being asked to stay home until further advice. “There will also be no movement of UN personnel on the streets or road missions in the city until further instructions,” he underlined, adding that movements within the city were temporarily suspended. According to UNAMA the bomb exploded Tuesday afternoon when a vehicle packed with explosives parked outside the UN office. “At about 3:50 [local time] a vehicle parked between the north side of UNAMA/Kandahar and south side of the United Nations main electoral/United Nations Office for Projects Services building exploded,” Singh explained. The United Nations said it did not have any further details of the explosion so far, pending an investigation. “At this stage we have no confirmation of the strength of the explosives used; the type of vehicle; injuries or whether anyone has claimed responsibility for the act,” he said. However, according to the state-run Bakhter Information Agency, at least one person was injured as a result of the incident. Earlier that day a demining vehicle ran over an anti-tank mine on the Kandahar airport road, a UN demining agency confirmed to IRIN. “A Handicap International Belgium vehicle was driving on the airport road when it hit an anti-tank mine and the vehicle was destroyed. I am not sure about casualties but the initial investigations say it was a newly planted mine not an old one,” Takuto Kubo, an external relations associate for United Nations Mine Action Centre for Afghanistan (UNMACA) said. Unconfirmed reports from the area indicate that two people were injured in that blast. According to UNAMA, Tuesday’s explosion was the second attack against a UN compound in the southern city after a grenade was thrown into the FAO [UN Food and Agriculture Organisation] in the summer of 2002 causing minimal damage, but no deaths or injuries. On 5 November, a bomb exploded outside the offices of aid agencies, Save the Children USA and Oxfam in the capital, Kabul. There were no casualties in that incident.