PRESS BRIEFING BY THE U.N. OFFICES FOR PAKISTAN AND AFGHANISTAN (28 December 2001)

The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today's briefing in Islamabad by the United Nations offices for Pakistan and Afghanistan --excluding the Question and Answer session.

** Jordan Dey, Spokesperson for WFP

The World Food Programme is assuming responsibility for the passenger air service into Afghanistan starting on 1 January 2002. Previously the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs managed the flight operations.

The passenger service, called the United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS), will include three flights a week to Kabul as well as flights to Herat, Mazar, Faizabad, Termez (Uzbekistan), and Dushanbe (Tajikistan).

We have a full schedule in the back of the room. Additional flights may be added in January after we go through the transition process.

WFP will be using four aircraft:

-a Fokker 28, short-haul passenger jet with 55 seats and passenger cargo space.
-a Beachcraft 1900 with 18 seats
-a Beachcraft 200 with 9 seats
-a Yak 40 with 24 seats

The seating priority will remain the same:

-UN personnel
-Accredited NGOs
-Donor governments
-Media

The new address for the check-in counter is: UNHAS, House No.4, Street 51, F-8/3, Islamabad. Telephone: 92-51-226.2842

Food shipments into Afghanistan:

I am happy to report that WFP has now moved more than 90,000 tons of food into Afghanistan during the month of December, a record amount. Our major dispatchment points are Peshawar and Quetta in Pakistan, Turkmenabad in Turkmenistan, Termez in Uzbekistan and Chabahar in Iran. More than 4,000 tons are despatched from these regional hubs every day and getting trucked, railed, flown and barged into Afghanistan.

Bagging and dispatching operations are continuing at four sites in Iran and one in Turkmenistan - where the operation runs 24 hours a day.

Regional reports:

The Chagcharan road in the Central Highlands is snowed in right now. However, WFP was able to preposition 80% of the food needs in the region using both the western and eastern access road. The six-months food ration will cover community needs until we are able to open the road again. Our 22-member Swedish Rescue Services Agency team is moving into the area to try to clear the road.

In Eastern Afghanistan, WFP has sent hundreds of metric tonnes of food to our NGO partners in Jalalabad. Reports are that the city is relatively calm but travel outside the city was problematic.

The Northeast of Afghanistan, where winter is in full swing, the region continues to be well-served by regular truck convoys from Kyrgyzstan and occasional flights directly into Faizabad. Our Avalanche Control Unit has been active in the region as well as road-clearing teams, keeping the major access roads open.

In Western Afghanistan,food is getting pumped into our Herat warehouse from three roads now: Quetta (Pakistan), Mashad (Iran) and Torgundi (road from Turkmenistan).

Japanese school children update:

We will depart for the Jalozai refugee camp (Peshawar) on January 2 to share the letters from the Japanese school children with the Afghan children living in the refugee camp. You will also be able to see a WFP food distribution in the camp, which has approximately 50,000 people living in it. Please make arrangements with me after the briefing.

** Einar Kr. Holtet, Spokesperson for UNOCHA

The loss of Afghan cultural history that has taken place over the last few years is being examined. UNESCO’s leading representatives visiting Kabul found that Afghanistan’s cultural heritage is under extreme threat. - This is totally unacceptable, said Mr. Martin Hadlow, representing UNESCO’s Director General, Mr. Koichiro Matsuura.

“A nation stays alive when it’s culture stays alive”, reads a sign over the Kabul Museum, now a vision of destruction. Not only have the exhibits been destroyed. The very infrastructure of the building has been violated. Visiting Afghanistan’s capital city, Mr. Hadlow was taken aback by the enormity of the loss to the Afghan people of their tangible cultural heritage.

“I walked through desolation”, he said after a round trip at the Kabul Museum. “I was amazed by the appalling loss of cultural history in a land once being a Silk Road crossing point. What has happened is a loss of cultural heritage for the world, a heritage which belongs to all humanity”.

UNESCO Director-General has previously expressed his deep dismay at the destruction of the Bamiyan statues and the loss of historical artifacts from the country. During his visit, he will focus international donor attention on the need to support the cultural revival of Afghan society.

In meetings with UNESCO’s Representative, Afghanistan’s new Minister of Culture and Information, Mr. Raheen Makhdoom, underlined the importance of support from the international community. He called for worldwide assistance to Kabul Museum and public libraries, and he wanted to develop museums also in other parts of the country.

A few words on the specific security situation in the Kabul area:

So far, 24 kilometres of the New Road to Bagram have been surveyed by the UN Mine Action Programme for Afghanistan. Rockets, bomblets, artillery shells and rocket-propelled grenades are some of the items which have been destroyed in the process. The Mine Action Programme visited Kabul airport yesterday. An explosive ordnance disposal team is inside the airport and have discovered a previously unknown large unexploded bomb that had hit an Ariana Airlines plane and is now embedded in the airfield. The team will not try to remove this bomb at present.

Yesterday, Mr. Lakhdar Brahimi met with Antonio Donini of the United Nations office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs to discuss the humanitarian situation and coordination with the humanitarian agencies.

**Fatoumata Kaba, Spokesperson for UNHCR

The city of Kandahar is calm and stable, according to a report we received on the situation in southern Afghanistan. The report says that outside of the city however, there are still some security concerns. Despite these concerns Kandahar Province is more stable than neighbouring Helmand Province, where there is still strife among different factions. The relative stability in Kandahar Province is due to the presence of government security forces. We are expecting a UN security assessment mission to be in Kandahar by tomorrow and if the assessment proves positive, UNHCR will send its own rapid assessment team on the situation of the internally displaced persons (IDPs). Several hundreds of thousand of IDPs were recorded in southern Afghanistan but a fresh assessment will be required now that the bombings have ceased in the zone and a new a government is in place in Kabul. The assessment will help aid agencies shape proper assistance programs.

Meanwhile, hopeful Afghans continue to return home from southern Pakistan — over 15,000 since the installation of the interim government. Among those returning via the Chaman border, are more females. They are mostly heading for Kabul where female employment prospects are perceived to be good since the installation of a new government in the capital. Indeed, the international community, embodied by diplomatic representations and aid agencies, is encouraging female employment after this category was banned from the workplace by the toppled Taliban regime. Before the installation of the interim government, those returning were mostly males.

In eastern Afghanistan, we also have staff reporting that the security situation was relatively calm in Jalalabad as of 24 December. They also reported that the Jalalabad airport was operational. A UN security assessment team left Pakistan today for Jalalabad and we expect to resume our activities in the region as soon as the security team gives us green light to do so. Eastern Afghanistan is the place of origin of the vast majority of Afghan refugees living in NWFP where the majority of Afghans found refuge in Pakistan for over two decades. Our priority in eastern Afghanistan will be to prepare and assist IDPs to return to their districts of origin before the expected large-scale repatriation of Afghans next spring.

Meanwhile, UNHCR continues to shift needy refugees to new camps in Pakistan. This effort will be pursued throughout the winter season and we will accelerate the rhytm of the transfers as I have been telling you in the past days.

In early January we plan to open seven new sites in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) area that have a cumulative reception capacity for over 50,000 refugees. They are located in the Mohmand, Kurram and Khyber Agencies in tribal zones. New refugees in Jalozai, one of the camps in Pakistan with the most difficult living conditions, favour their transfer to Khyber Agency, where they feel they have easier access to Afghanistan when they are ready to return.

Today we have sent the first tents for the establishment of the refugee registration and community services centers on the Shalman I location in Khyber Agency. Prefabricated warehouses were also transferred to the site today for the storage of food and other relief items.

** Fadela Chaib, Spokesperson for WHO

A team from World Health Organization (WHO) met in Kabul on 26 December with the newly appointed Afghan Public Health Minister, Dr Sohila Sediq. She stated that she is aware of the huge responsibilities facing her ministry. She expressed her gratitude for the support WHO has provided to Afghanistan since many years. She also stressed that WHO is in a good position to facilitate coordination between Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) and all health partners. In addition the Minister requested WHO
to ensure a strong presence in the country, offering technical support to MoPH, as well as the institutional memory required for strengthening national authorities.

The Minister also informed that there is an urgent need for rehabilitating health infrastructure, which has suffered from years of
destruction and lack of maintenance, as well as to ensure a regular supply of medicines and vaccines.

She appealed also for WHO and UNICEF assistance to reactivate medical training, targeting especially female health workers, who will represent a crucial asset for the health system, as is the case in other countries. Another area requiring WHO assistance is the control of the communicable diseases which are the main causes of high morbidity and mortality in the country.