UN to pull non-essential foreign staff from Afghanistan
World
UN to pull non-essential foreign staff from Afghanistan
The United Nations said on Thursday it would start evacuating hundreds of its international staff from Afghanistan after an attack by Taliban militants last month killed five foreign staff. UN spokesman Aleem Siddique said the United Nations would relocate about 600 of its roughly 1,100 international staff in total, with some being moved to safer sites within Afghanistan while the rest would be withdrawn from the country. We will be looking as a temporary measure to relocate some staff within the country and some staff outside of the country, while we can secure accommodation, where proper security measures can be provided for staff, as a temporary measure. We estimate that somewhere in the region of about 12 percent of our staff would be affected across Afghanistan. Now some of those staff may be relocated in other locations here within Kabul, Siddique said.The spokesman also said that does not mean their activities in Afghanistan will stop.Absolutely not. We remain committed to insuring that all of our programmes and our activities continue. But obviously following the events of last week we really do need to have a look at how we can ensure that our staff can continue those programmes and activities, but at the same time we can protect their safety, he added.
