A Mercy Corps office and two U.N. food warehouses reportedly have been taken over

10/18/01

RICHARD READ

Taliban soldiers have seized the Mercy Corps office in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and much of the food donated to the nation as the regime's bomb-damaged stronghold spins into chaos, relief agencies reported Wednesday.

Two Afghan employees of Mercy Corps, the Portland-based relief organization, submitted a rare first-hand report describing soldiers from the Taliban's northern front lines moving into homes abandoned by people fleeing the southern city.

"Kandahar is on the verge of anarchy," the Mercy Corps workers wrote after returning to Pakistan on Tuesday. "Due to heavy bombardment, most people in Kandahar can't even transfer the wounded to the hospital. Nor can they bury their dead."

Officials of the U.N. World Food Program said Taliban soldiers took over its two main food warehouses in Afghanistan on Tuesday night, seizing 7,000 metric tons of food in Kandahar and Kabul.

"If it continues, obviously it spells disaster for humanitarian relief," said Abigail Spring, a World Food Program spokeswoman in Washington, D.C. "If it's a one-time incident, we can continue moving food."

The U.N. agency, the main supplier of donated food, had just 9,000 metric tons of wheat last week in the country, which is in danger of widespread famine this winter.

Oxfam International and some other British-based relief agencies are calling for a pause in the bombing so that food and supplies can be delivered before snow flies in mid-November.

But Mercy Corps is not joining the public call and is instead communicating its concerns privately, said Neal Keny-Guyer, the organization's chief executive officer.

Mercy Corps sent four of its Afghan staff members from Quetta, Pakistan, to Kandahar on Oct. 11 to check conditions and to visit rural clinics operated by the organization. While two of the workers remained to continue scouting supply routes, two returned to Quetta and filed a report received in Portland on Wednesday.

"Three Mercy Corps staff members met with Taliban officials who remain in possession of Mercy Corps vehicles and office," the report said. "It seems impossible to retake these from the security commander at this time."

The Mercy Corps workers said other relief organizations could no longer distribute food and supplies in Kandahar. Seventy percent of shops in the city are closed, they said, and food prices have soared. Mercy Corps' rural clinics, however, continue to operate.

-- Anonymous, October 18, 2001