Fighting in Mazar-e Sharif obstructs aid efforts

Recent events in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif have served to obstruct the implementation of the UN's plans to re-deploy international staff in the area, thereby curtailing humanitarian aid for thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) are in urgent need, the UN's deputy coordinator for Afghanistan, Antonio Donini, told IRIN on Monday.

According to media reports, fighting has been continuing at a fort near the city, where US and Northern Alliance forces have been trying to stop what has been described as a revolt on Sunday by hundreds of Taliban prisoners captured in the latest round of clashes. The resulting insecurity there has compelled the international aid community to rethink its plans. "The redeployment of staff is on hold until the security situation improves," Donini said. He added that the UN was looking at possible options in accessing all possible routes into Mazar-e Sharif.

Donini last week had met the ethnic Uzbek commander of the United Front, Rashid Dostum, who gave him security assurances. However, the situation had changed now and it was much more unstable than before, Donini said. On 23 November, the UN issued a statement saying that the situation in Mazar-e Sharif was "fragile, but improving"; more recently, however, it said conditions had worsened due to the breakdown in law and order at the weekend.

Meanwhile, the operations of the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) in the city were also interrupted when two of its staff members, who were holding talks inside the fort with the local authorities on access to the prisoners, were forced to flee.

"Two delegates took refuge in the basement of a compound in the fort, and then went to the roof of the building, where they saw exchanges of fire. They managed to climb over a wall, and escaped," Bernard Barrett, an ICRC spokesman in Kabul, told IRIN on Monday. He added that three wounded people had been evacuated from the compound in the fort, but was unable to elaborate on who they were.

ICRC is continuing to send aid into Mazar-e Sharif, the most recent being a 59-truck convoy carrying 1,500 mt of food for distribution. "This supply contains enough food for 10,000 people for a six-week period," Barrett said. The food is earmarked for some 65,000 IDPs in and around the city. ICRC, in collaboration with the Afghan Red Crescent in Mazar, was working to identify the most vulnerable to ensure their needs were met, he said.

With hospitals across the country in need of supplies, the ICRC consignment also included six medical kits for hospitals treating war wounds.

The ICRC is also sending a 10-truck convoy from the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad to the western Afghan province of Herat. ICRC has 36 international staff working in Mazar-e Sharif, the capital Kabul, the western province of Herat, Taloqan in the north, the northeastern city of Faizabad (Feyzabad) and the eastern city of Jalalabad. "We are hoping to bring in an additional 22 staff members in the next few days," Barrett said.