Email 
Print 
Staff pullout in Afghanistan will not affect frontline services, U.N. says
Written by: Nita Bhalla
A security personnel member monitors an area as he stands guard in front of the main entrance of the United Nations multi-agency compound near Herat Nov 5, 2009. REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubazl
NEW DELHI (AlertNet) - Frontline humanitarian services in Afghanistan will not be affected by the United Nation's decision to relocate temporarily 600 of roughly 1,100 international staff due to increased militant attacks, the world body said on Thursday. The U.N. has decided to pull out some of its expat staff for "a number of weeks" after five foreign U.N. workers were killed by militants in Kabul last week, Dan McNorton, a senior public information officer at the organisation, told AlertNet. "In light of the events that took place last week, we have to take the security situation seriously," McNorton said in an interview by phone from Kabul, adding the U.N. was sending less critical staff members to safe areas within and outside the country. "This relocation affects staff in non-frontline positions, such as support staff and others who are not critical to programmes we are running across the country," he said. This could include those doing administrative work, McNorton added. Most of the staff involved in frontline services were Afghans and would remain in place, he said. The U.N. mission in Afghanistan has around 5,600 national and international staff working in various activities such as providing relief and recovery services to those affected by years of conflict. U.N. PLAYS CRITICAL ROLE The mission played a critical role in organising elections in the country this year, and its agencies are involved in various projects such as distributing food rations, immunisations and developing water and sanitation programmes. In last week's attack, Taliban suicide bombers hiding explosive vests under police uniforms entered a guest-house used by U.N. staff, killing five foreigners and prompting a security review by many of the international agencies in the country. McNorton said the relocation affected only 12 percent of the total staff in the country and those who were not essential to the delivery of humanitarian services. "We would do everything to minimise any distruption on any of our operations across the country and the decision has been made that those staff who are critical remain." He said that the move was only likely to last a number of weeks until arrangements to beef up security for all staff members were put in place. On Monday, the U.N. mission in neighbouring Pakistan raised the security threat level for its workers in the northwest of the country, evacuating all foriegn staff involved in non-emergency projects due to increased militant attacks.
Reuters AlertNet is not responsible for the content of external websites.
We welcome argument but AlertNet will not publish comments that are racist, abusive or libellous.
Leave a Reply
When you submit a comment to us we request your name, e-mail address and optionally a link to a website. Please note where you submit a website address, we may link to it via your name. By sending us a comment, you accept that we have the right to show the comment and your name to users. Although we require your email address, this will not be published on the site, and is only required to enable us to check facts with you, e.g. if you are making a claim we can not confirm easily. Additionally, if you would like your comment removed at anytime, you'll have to use this e-mail address when you contact us. To remove a comment at any time please e-mail us at blogs-(at)-reuters-(dot)-com (address obscured to avoid spam) specifying who you are and what you would like removed. We moderate all comments and will publish everything that advances the post directly or with relevant tangential information. We reserve the right to edit comments in order to maintain the quality of the comments, and may not include links to irrelevant material. We try not to publish comments that we think are offensive or appear to pass you off as another person, and we will be conservative if comments may be considered libelous. Reuters will use your data in accordance with Reuters privacy policy. Reuters Group is primarily responsible for managing your data. As Reuters is a global company your data will be transferred and available internationally, including in countries which do not have privacy laws but Reuters seeks to comply with its privacy policy.
Unlike some other content on this website, the written content in this article may be republished or redistributed by any means free of charge. Any use of photographs and graphics on this website is expressly prohibited. You must check whether written content contained in other articles on this website may be republished or redistributed without the express permission of Reuters or the relevant third party provider.
