Halt attacks on aid agencies, says rights body

Increasing attacks on aid workers and relief agency offices in Afghanistan "must be stopped", a statement from Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Thursday. "The Taliban and other armed elements are carrying out widespread attacks on humanitarian workers in Afghanistan, stealing their equipment, supplies, and vehicles," the statement said.

"We are deeply concerned about what they are using the vehicles and equipment for, shielding themselves using humanitarian assets, and putting humanitarian workers at risk," Peter Bouckaert, a senior researcher in Islamabad for HRW, told IRIN on Friday. He said the loss of transport would directly affect the ability of aid agencies to deliver food.

On Friday, the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) reported that all its offices in the north of the country had been sealed off by the Taliban, and had at least been partly looted. "This is a big blow for us, but we will continue our operations," Douglas Higgins, the SCA regional director, told IRIN. With 2,000 staff in place in Afghanistan, Higgins said workers had fled from the cities for their own safety, but added that 55 rural clinics would continue to operate.

HRW expressed concern over the US-led bombings of two "clearly marked" ICRC warehouses in broad daylight on Tuesday. Another incident, in which a UN World Food Programme worker was wounded by shrapnel from a bomb that landed on Kabul airport while he was loading bags of grain from a nearby warehouse, was also worrying aid agencies and human rights organisations. "The US military alliance should take all necessary steps to minimise injury to civilians," the statement said.

Meanwhile, the UN said an NGO had reported five children living in the Sakhi camp for internally displaced persons outside the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif killed by land-mine explosions.

"Apparently the children were looking for firewood, as the distribution of fuel for heating and cooking purposes had been stopped in the camp," Hasan Ferdous, a spokesman for the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Afghanistan, told reporters at a press briefing on Thursday. Ferdous added that mine action workers were still trying to defuse an unexploded bomb which fell on a boys' school in Kabul earlier this week.