UN condemns killing of aid workers

The United Nations special envoy to Afghanistan has condemned Friday’s attack on aid workers in the western Herat province and has called on the government to improve the safety of relief personnel and those involved in reconstruction projects.

Afghan driver Sirajuddin Noorzai, working for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and Zmarai Azizi, a local doctor working for the German medical aid group Malteser International, were killed and a second UNICEF staff member, Qasim Nazari, seriously wounded when unidentified gunmen attacked their vehicle. The incident happened in the Korkh district of Herat.

“We know of no reasons why this attack should have occurred, nor can there be any reason to justify murder and maiming,” Tom Koenigs, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Afghanistan, said in a statement released in the capital Kabul.

“All United Nations staff here share a common commitment to seeing Afghanistan at peace,” Koenigs noted, adding that he would try his best to ensure that the individuals responsible for the attack were found and brought to account.

Meanwhile, Edward Carwardine, UNICEF’s public information officer in Afghanistan, said that the agency would continue its relief activities in the west of the country. "UNICEF remains as committed today as it was on Friday morning to working with the people of Afghanistan to build a stronger country for women and children.”

Relatives of the two aid workers were skeptical that the killers would be brought to justice. “I am not sure the government will do anything to arrest the perpetrators as it never did in the past,” complained Hekmatullah, father of Zmarai Azizi.

Aid and development workers, both local and international, have been under attack in Afghanistan for some time now.

Five staff from the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) medical aid group - three foreigners and two Afghans - were killed in an ambush in the northwestern province of Badghis in 2004. In March 2006, an Afghan national working for the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) in the western province of Farah province was gunned down while monitoring project sites in the Bala Buluk district of the province.

In April 2006, unidentified gunmen killed five health ministry workers, including nurses, doctors and a driver, in their clinic in the Qadis district of Badghis province.

Meanwhile, violence blamed on the ousted Taliban militia and other insurgent groups has left many southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan off-limits to aid workers, government officials and police.

In 2005 a total of 31 aid workers were killed in different parts of the country; an increase over the 24 killed in 2004, according to the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office (ANSO), based in Kabul.

Insecurity remains a major problem in post-Taliban Afghanistan, with about 1,700 people killed in 2005 in militant violence, making 2005 the deadliest year since 2001. The toll was double that of 2004.