Aid agencies welcome opening of bridge

Humanitarian officials and aid workers welcomed the reopening of the "Friendship Bridge" as the first train carrying relief supplies into Afghanistan from Uzbekistan crossed the border on Sunday after nearly four years of closure. Extending across the Amu Darya river from the Uzbek border town of Termez, the bridge will greatly facilitate humanitarian access to the country, where some six million people are in urgent need of food assistance. "The opening of the bridge is very welcome news and demonstrates the commitment of the government of Uzbekistan in supporting the humanitarian effort in Afghanistan," UN deputy coordinator for Afghanistan, Antonio Donini, told IRIN in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad on Monday. "This will greatly facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance to Mazar-e Sharif and areas of northern Afghanistan where we are racing against time to get as much assistance in as possible before winter conditions worsen," he explained. Constructed during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the bridge was closed when Taliban forces took control of the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif. Recently, however, Uzbek officials have been under intense international pressure to reopen the bridge in an effort to improve access to the area. UN information officer in the Uzbek capital Tashkent, Nigina Baykabuloza, told IRIN the issue was first raised by UN Undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs, Kenzo Oshima, during his visit to the Uzbek capital in October and the bridge's opening came one day after a high profile meeting between US Secretary of State Colin Powell and Uzbek President Islam Karimov on Saturday. She explained the first shipment of 14 rail cars included both food and non-food items donated by the Uzbek government, adding the train was met by Uzbek Afghan warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, who inspected the load. "This is a dramatic development from a logistics point of view, not just for us, but for all humanitarian workers in reaching millions of Afghans in the country's northern hunger belt," World Food Programme (WFP) regional public affairs officer, Khaled Mansour told IRIN. "It's easier and its faster," he added. Echoing this view, agency spokesman Jordan Dey told IRIN: "This is a major event - we are talking about a key route now open that previously was inaccessible. We can now move more food more quickly into hard hit areas of northern Afghanistan". With the bridge capable of carrying both trucks and rail traffic, WFP was not longer solely dependent on moving food by barge. Since the beginning of the operation in October, WFP has sent some 2,300 mt of food by barge. "This figure will now significantly increase due to the increased capacity of train, truck and barge," he maintained. Brandan Paddy, senior media officer for the NGO, Save the Children in Tashkent told IRIN that opening the bridge was positive, but aid flows should not be held back by bureaucracy. "We are extremely pleased the Uzbek government, with encouragement from the UN, has opened the bridge between Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. This is an extremely important route to the whole of northern Afghanistan and without it, it would be impossible to move the quantities required quickly enough to meet the humanitarian needs there," he said. "However, we need to be sure that access for NGO and UN agencies is not impeded by unduly restrictive customs or other procedures and that all amounts of goods, as well as international and national staff, can travel freely," he added. Elaborating on that concern, he explained: "To date, the only access to northern Afghanistan from Uzbekistan has been via barge and only UN goods were officially allowed to travel on these barges, making it extremely difficult to move NGO goods, and impossible to move NGO staff." He added that the first convoy of UN and NGO goods was scheduled to cross over on Monday. "If that succeeds, other agencies will quickly follow," he maintained. Meanwhile, in a related development, the Tajik government has reopened a ferry crossing to Afghanistan across the Pyandzh river. According to a BBC report, a convoy of more than 20 trucks of humanitarian assistance from Russia was reported to have crossed the river on Sunday morning on its way to the Afghan capital, Kabul. The ferry crossing had been closed to traffic and pedestrians since September 2000 when the hardline Taliban militia seized contol of the port of Sherkhan on the Afghan side of the river. According to AFP, the move to reopen the border point came as Tajik President Emomali Rakhmonov held talks with interim Afghan foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah about the most effective way for Dushanbe to help rebuild Afghanistan.