17 October 2001

Taliban Seizes U.N. Grain Warehouses in Kabul and Kandahar

By Charlene Porter
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- The Taliban seized two warehouses in Afghan cities where the World Food Program (WFP) was storing almost 7,000 tons of grain for distribution throughout the country. WFP Executive Director Catherine Bertini said at a Washington press conference October 17 that the WFP is still transporting more grain into the country where as many as 5 to 7 million people could face starvation during the oncoming winter.

Describing the October 16 incident to reporters, Bertini said, "We regret deeply that we no longer have access to these warehouses because they are critical" to the international humanitarian effort to feed a country suffering from more than 20 years of war and three years of drought. WFP is making plans to provide other warehousing arrangements in the two cities.

The Kabul and Kandahar warehouses seized were two of six major facilities WFP is operating in the country. They contained about 7,000 metric tons (MT) of grain at the time they were taken by the Taliban, more than half of the supply currently in the country. Bertini said supplies are being rapidly replenished, however, with plans in place to move more than 16,000 tons of grain into Afghanistan over the next 10 days. "We'll try again," she said.

Because of serious communication limitations in the region, the WFP has few details of the seizure itself. According to Bertini, Taliban militia members arrived at the warehouses and announced they were taking over the facilities. The aid workers on duty left without being injured or threatened, she said. She had no information on what happened to the grain.

The Taliban's action in Afghanistan came on the same day the U.N. Security Council, meeting in New York, "demanded that the Taliban should stop threatening the safety and security of aid workers, and to cease obstructing aid destined for the Afghan people," according to Council President Ambassador Richard Ryan of Ireland.

"We hope that the Taliban will respect the need of their people to eat," Bertini said as she explained that the WFP will proceed with food distribution plans despite the heightened security risks that now threaten the humanitarian operation.

WFP is currently delivering about 900 MT of commodities a day, up from 200 MT in September, which had become an average monthly level in what has been a longstanding WFP relief campaign in Afghanistan. After the terrorist attacks on the United States, international humanitarian officials increased their estimates of how many Afghans might need assistance as mounting tension and uncertainty created greater instability and lesser reliability of markets and food supplies.

Bertini said WFP has 48,000 MT of grain in the region now, with 165,000 more on the way, most of it from the United States. Those stockpiles put the agency fairly close to achieving its monthly goal to transport 52,000 MT into Afghanistan.

A lack of security for workers and the commodities themselves is certainly an obstacle to that goal, the WFP director said. "We certainly did not foresee," that the Taliban might seize the humanitarian stores.

Poor communication is another major problem, Bertini said, after the Taliban prohibited the use of all telecommunications devices in September. There are only limited public phones available for the WFP workers to use, Bertini said, so international relief workers outside the country have only sporadic contact with the Afghan local staff inside the country.

The United Nations system in Afghanistan evacuated all of its 75 staff members in September due to security concerns. Many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) withdrew relief workers at the same time.

While some NGOs have described the U.S. bombing as a major impediment to the delivery of food and the conduct of the humanitarian operation, Bertini did not identify the military campaign as such. She said that WFP will transport food supplies to where they're needed "regardless of circumstances."

The agency has operated in Afghanistan throughout a war with the Soviet Union and its own civil war. Further, Bertini said in recent years WFP has fed the hungry in the midst of civil wars in a number of different areas, accumulating significant experience conducting humanitarian operations in difficult and dangerous environment. "We have to continue to try" to deliver food to those in need, she said.

Acquiring adequate transport for the food is another constant problem, Bertini said. Commercial trucking companies have carried significant amounts of supplies in the past, but with increased fuel costs and greater security risks, truckers are now seeking higher compensation. WFP is negotiating with various transport companies, and even bringing donkeys into the transportation scheme to carry food supplies into mountainous regions.