UNICEF head to visit Kabul

Executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Carol Bellamy, will travel to Pakistan on Friday for a five-day visit to the region, agency officials told IRIN on Wednesday. The trip, which will have a heavy Afghanistan emphasis, will include visits to the Afghan capital, Kabul and the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta. She will personally survey the difficult conditions facing millions of children in a region stricken by drought, displacement, disease and conflict.

"Following the events of 11 September, coming to see the situation on the ground will allow her to assess the situation more accurately and in a more comprehensive way," the UNICEF spokesman for Afghanistan, Chulho Hyon, said. The visit, focusing on the plight of Afghan children, is an effort to raise global awareness of their immediate needs before the harsh winter weather commenced, he explained.

"With winter arriving in Afghanistan at the same time as a new set of political circumstances come into view, this is a crucial time," Bellamy said in a recent statement. "As we plan for the reconstruction of this country's education system, health-care network and other basic services for children, we cannot forget the immediate needs that must be met over the difficult months," she added.

While both immediate relief efforts and long-term recovery plans will be examined, Bellamy said her trip to the region would emphasise the critical role children would play in the healthy future development of Afghanistan.

"It is vital for a stable future in Afghanistan that a long-term investment in education begins now," Hyon stressed.

Bellamy is scheduled to travel to Kabul on Saturday, followed by visits to the Pakistani cities of Peshawar and Quetta before returning to Islamabad, where she will meet senior government officials on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Luc Chauvin, UNICEF programme officer in the Iranian capital, Tehran, told IRIN that the agency's fourth convoy of relief supplies from Iran was set to be dispatched to the western Afghan city of Herat on Wednesday. The 14-truck convoy of locally procured winter items, would be followed by an additional convoy on Sunday.

"Our priority is to increase the number of winter items," he said. "As winter fast approaches, it is imperative that we get these supplies into the country in the most expeditious way possible."

Since the beginning of the crisis, UNICEF in Iran has sent three convoys containing 80 mt of relief supplies from the northeastern city of Mashhad across the border to Herat, where over 200,000 people remain displaced. UNICEF estimates that up to 100,000 Afghan children could die if essential relief supplies are not made available in the next few weeks.