Four UN de-miners killed in air attack

Four UN mine-action staff members were instantly killed when a missile or bomb struck their office in the Afghan capital, Kabul, the UN announced on Tuesday in Islamabad. The incident took place on Monday evening during the second wave of US-led strikes, prompting calls for the need to protect civilian lives and assets in Afghanistan.

In a press conference on Tuesday, the UN spokeswoman for the Office of the Coordinator for Afghanistan, Stephanie Bunker, said the incident took place at 2100 local time on Monday during night air attacks on Kabul. Due to poor communications with national staff inside the country, the UN in Islamabad was only notified of the accident at 1130 on Tuesday.

Bunker expressed condolences for the families of the victims. Given the acute poverty in Afghanistan, many Afghan mine-action staff financially supported up to 15 family members or relatives.

The four Afghan staff belonged to the Afghan Technical Consultancy (ATC), which, established in 1989, forms part of the UN's mine-clearance effort. One of the largest and most experienced mine-clearance agencies, ATC was tasked with clearing minefields and unexploded ordnance throughout the country. Bunker said ATC had been responsible for the clearance of 32 percent of all cleared mine areas to date.

The programme manager of the UN Mine Action Centre in Afghanistan (MACA), Dan Kelly, told IRIN that the details surrounding the incident were still unclear. "It is under investigation, and we have reported this to our higher authorities. We will all be expressing our condolences to the families," he said.

MACA works with 15 NGOs throughout the country, which together employ some 4,800 workers involved in mine clearance and mine-awareness training. The office struck on Monday evening was one of three ATC offices in Kabul.

Kelly said normal mine-action operations in Afghanistan had closed down due to the current hostilities, although there were five rapid reaction teams in five Afghan provinces, including Kabul, to carry out emergency work. "We are now working on contingency plans, and our future priority will be to clear areas to which IDPs [internally displaced persons] will be returning, and clearing roads for aid workers as well," he said.

Bunker said that although the UN had received the report of the deaths of the four UN mine action staff, it had little information on conditions for civilians inside the country. According to local sources in Kabul, 50 percent of civil servants had turned up for work on Monday, but UN national staff attendance had dropped. "There is no mass panic in Kabul, but nor is there universal calm," she said.