UN to evacuate 600 foreign staff from Afghanistan

• Source: Global Times
• [08:10 November 06 2009]
• Comments

The UN announced Thursday that it was evacuating more than half its international staff from Afghanistan after a deadly Taliban attack on a guesthouse for UN workers.

But the UN said it had no intention of abandoning Afghanistan. Around 600 expatriate staff, from a total of 1,100 foreigners, will be temporarily relocated, UN spokesman Dan McNorton told AFP in Kabul.

"The only people who will remain are regarded as essential staff. This is to ensure the safety of all our staff in Afghanistan," the spokesman said, adding that the evacuations will begin immediately.

The UN has around 5,600 staff in Afghanistan, about 80 percent of whom are Afghans, and the relocations will affect around 12 percent of its total deployment.

The decision will be reviewed regularly and was expected to be effective for "a number of weeks while additional security is being put in place," McNorton said.

The move came eight days after Taliban suicide gunmen stormed a Kabul hostel in a dawn attack that killed five UN workers.

The head of the UN mission in Afghanistan, Norwegian diplomat Kai Eide, denied that the evacuation amounted to a withdrawal from Afghanistan.

"We are not pulling out and will not pull out," he told reporters. "The UN is putting in place immediate additional security measures for its international and Afghan staff. We will do what we can to avoid disruption of our work."

AFP