November 21, 2001
United Nations officials say that many of their offices in Afghanistan have been looted.
The organisation's premises in the eastern city of Jalalabad and the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif has been ransacked, UN spokesman Eric Falt says. And a convoy carrying 185 tonnes of food was hijacked while on its way to the north-western city of Herat on Monday, said the World Food Programme.
Tens of thousands of people in Afghanistan are in desperate need of assistance and leading aid agencies have said the lack of security is the main obstacle to delivering food and other supplies.
Taleban trucks
Mr Falt also said that the Jalalabad offices of other agencies had been robbed. Radios, vehicles and office equipment were taken.
The trucks bound for Herat were hijacked by "unidentified bandits" and the food distributed to local residents, according to WFP spokesman, Khaled Mansour. The trucks are now believed to be in the Taleban's southern stronghold of Kandahar.
Mike Sackett, the UN humanitarian co-ordinator for Afghanistan, this week said he had received assurances that the Northern Alliance would take steps to protect aid workers.
Call for multi-national force
Aid agencies have called on the United Nations to create a multi-national force to ensure the aid can be distributed safely. Afghanistan has suffered from a three-year long drought and six million people depend on aid.
This would not be the same as a peacekeeping force and would operate in areas where there was the greatest need. The call came from non-governmental organisations including Save the Children, Refugees International and Mercy Corps.
A spokesman for Refugees International said many countries were apparently willing to take part and it could be set up quickly. The spokesman said they were also increasingly concerned about the plight of thousands of people displaced by the bombardments who had fled their homes and were living in tents or out in the open. The BBC's Susannah Price in Islamabad says the UN has never sounded keen on sending in any kind of force.
The deputy representative for Afghanistan, Francesc Vendrell, said they backed the idea of a multinational force going to Afghanistan but that it should be a coalition of the willing, organised by one country and not by the UN.
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