UNICEF steps up relief effort for Afghan crisis

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) confirmed to IRIN on Sunday its plans to airlift an additional 80 mt of relief aid destined for the north-eastern Iranian city of Mashhad this week as part of its continuing efforts to assist the Afghan people. Luc Chauvin, the UNICEF programme officer in the Iranian capital, Tehran, said the planned relief aid, worth some US $300,000, would be dispatched from UNICEF stores in Europe. It would include tents, blankets, water purification items and sanitary packages. "We are expecting two more flights for Iran, as well as additional flights to the subregion this week," Chauvin said. The move follows the arrival of 30 mt of health materials in Mashhad from UNICEF's strategic stores in Denmark on Friday. The delivery was of one of six flights to the subregion last week, comprising three for Pakistan, two for Turkmenistan and one for Iran. The consignments, valued at US $150,000, "will be able to cater to the immediate basic health needs of some three million people living in the western Afghan province of Herat for three months", Chauvin said. The relief items, transferred to seven Iranian Red Crescent trucks, were set to be dispatched to the border on Monday, crossing into Afghanistan on Tuesday morning for Herat, he added. Located 250 km northwest of the Afghan border, Mashhad is set become a major staging ground for UN regional contingency activities in Iran. As regards other plans, Chauvin said: "We are going to open a sub-office in Mashhad, and possibly in Zahedan, in anticipation of a possible influx of refugees, as well to support cross-border operations into Afghanistan." Meanwhile, Mohammad Nouri, the spokesman of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Tehran, told IRIN on Sunday that the second aircraft carrying relief aid from the UNHCR landed in Mashhad on Saturday. The flight, from Britain, contained almost 900 tents, adding to the 400 UNHCR received on 3 October for Afghan refugees who had fled in fear of a US-led retaliatory strike on Afghanistan for the 11 September attacks.