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Following Tuesday’s serious terrorist attacks in the United States, the United Nations system in Afghanistan had decided on Wednesday to temporarily relocate international staff to Islamabad, capital of neighbouring Pakistan, a press release by the office of the United Nations Coordinator for Afghanistan stated.
UN international staff are currently present in six locations of the war-torn country: the capital Kabul, the eastern cities of Jalalabad and Faizabad, Mazar-e Sharif in the north, the southern province of Kandahar and the western province of Herat.
Stephanie Bunker, spokeswoman for the office of the United Nations Coordinator for Afghanistan in Islamabad, told IRIN that the relocation operation was currently taking place by air. The statement said it was hoped that up to 80 staff would be relocated by Thursday.
The release added that UN humanitarian agencies hoped that activities in Afghanistan could continue as normal so that critical pre-winter relief work would go ahead.
US missile strikes on Afghanistan followed the bombing of American embassies in East Africa in 1998. Newspapers in Pakistan quoted Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban authorities as saying that they condemned the loss of life and destruction caused by the attacks, but that retaliatory measures against Afghanistan would be a “big mistake”.
In Islamabad security was stepped up around American and UN buildings as well as the airport, in the wake of Tuesday’s attacks on targets in New York and Washington. “Pakistan is obviously extremely horrified and shocked at the terrorist attacks in New York,” press secretary to President Pervez Musharraf, Maj-Gen Rashid Qureshi, told IRIN.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions