NGOs voice concern over recent spate of killings of aid workers

The Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR), an umbrella organisation representing more than 90 national and international NGOs working in Afghanistan, has expressed outrage over yet another fatal attack on the NGO community in less than two weeks. "The NGO community is deeply shocked that within the space of 11 days, nine members of the NGO community have been killed," Barbara Stapleton, advocacy coordinator for ACBAR, told IRIN from the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Friday. "We are very concerned about security and the steps that have been taken to address the deterioration of the situation." Her comments follow the vicious murder of five Afghans working for the Sanyee Development Foundation (SDF), a local NGO active in community development, on Wednesday evening, along a road between Ozbin Khol village and Sarobi in eastern Paktika province. The team of eight SDF employees was returning to Sarobi after experiencing car problems along the way, effectively delaying their journey back. At approximately 7 pm local time, two gunmen stopped their unmarked Land Cruiser, demanded that the occupants get out, and subsequently lined up the eight staff members along the road. According to a statement issued by ACBAR on Thursday, their identities were asked for, including where they were from. The gunmen then executed one of the team members before firing on the rest. Three of the team managed to escape during the shooting, running off into the night. Wednesday's incident serves only to fuel and compound growing concern amongst local and international aid workers alike over insecurity in the fledgling Central Asian state, where reconstruction remains vital for the long-term stability of the nation. On 14 February, four Afghan workers from the local NGO, OMAR, were murdered in western Farah province. Regarding incremental steps taken to improve security in the country, Stapleton noted that provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs), were small and not mandated or resourced to directly make an impact on security, while efforts to boost the capacity of the Afghan army were still several years away from reaching its goal of a 75,000-strong trained and ethnically balanced force. "Police training has been accelerated but it's still very, very slow," she said, noting the ongoing danger facing aid workers along the roads. "The NGO community forms a soft and exposed target - and is very vulnerable to these attacks." "Impunity rules in the country," she claimed, noting the country's slow development towards establishing an effective criminal judicial system. "It's not just the NGO community, but the Afghan people at large who are exposed to these deteriorating levels of insecurity." And while the international community has long argued that security must be in the hands of the Afghans, she concurred, adding: "We agree with this, but we are concerned about the interim period, in the short term, before Afghan capacity, in terms of security institutions are built up which will take time." Meanwhile, some members of the NGO community, along with other actors, have repeatedly requested the expansion of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan (ISAF) outside the confines of Kabul. "This is now taking place, but very slowly through the PRT plan. We didn't envision it coming through the PRT plan. We envisioned the sort of security developed in Kabul being expanded to other urban centres, with something to be done regarding conditions along the roads," the ACBAR official explained. As for the road ahead, Barbara Stapleton remarked: "It's not really our decision as the NGO community to say what should happen, but what is happening is clearly unacceptable," adding that national NGOs were now questioning whether under present conditions inside the country they could continue their operations in a reasonably secure environment. Asking just that question, SDF director, Raz Muhammad Dalili, warned that if the government, ISAF or other parties could not guarantee the security of national NGOs working in areas like Sarobi, they would have no choice but to stop providing services to the Afghan communities they work with. SDF is currently working in 48 villages in the Sarobi area. "This is a very sad day for us," he is quoted in the ACBAR statement as saying. "SDF has never experienced an incident like this before."