UN closes aid centres in Pakistan amid security fears
Updated
The United Nations World Food Program has temporarily shut aid distribution centres in the northwest of the Pakistan, amid a heightened security threat and intense fighting in the south Waziristan region.
Earlier this month, the UN office in Islamabad was hit by a suicide bombing which killed five WFP workers.
Presenter: Bo Hill
Speaker: Ahmjad Jamal, spokesman, United Nations World Food Program, Islamabad
- Listen:
- Windows Media
JAMAL: Indeed there have been some reports and heightened security alerts all around the country, and these distribution points are mainly in the troubled areas, which receives almost 400 to 500 people on a daily basis. Together with the local administration and our own security department, after getting some reports that the situation is not so good and we will have to close down our food distribution for one day, we've carefully reviewed the security situation and if all goes well and there's no problem we will resume our food distribution from tomorrow.
HILL: Were the centres under direct threat?
JAMAL: There have been no threats to these centres but the situation overall and generally speaking the entire country is under so many security threats. Keeping in view the overall situation it was decided that we should close down the humanitarian hub.
HILL: And are your staff remaining in the area just not in the actual centre?
JAMAL: The majority of the staff on this hub is from the IP, the implementing partner, means local NGOs. We do have some of our logistic colleagues who supervise the food distribution plus some of the monitoring staff who visit these centres on a daily basis. Since it was decided last night the staff has made, it was announced to the staff that they should not go to these centres today.
HILL: Well what was the nature of the security fears?
JAMAL: Indeed if you generally look at the overall security situation in the country and especially in NWFP, the Malakand division had military operation since a month back, now with Waziristan offensive the security situation is really bad. Yesterday we had two blasts in one of the international Islamic universities in Islamabad; 5th of October we had terrorist activity in our own office in Islamabad. So if you generally look at the outlook it does not seem very good.
HILL: Has it been heightened since the beginning of the offensive in south Waziristan on the weekend?
JAMAL: One can say that after the Waziristan operation the situation is going from bad to worse.
HILL: And what will happen to the people that were requiring help from these distribution centres?
JAMAL: We are distributing food on a monthly basis, last month only in September we distributed food to nearly two-point-four-million IDPs. They only come once and they pick up their monthly rations. And we also anticipate that they may have some stocks from their previous rations. So it's closures for a day or two will not have major impact on these beneficiaries.
HILL: Is there any plan though from the WFP to try to change that security situation in that if this continues, if the offensive in Waziristan and the overall Pakistan security situation continues to get worse is there any plans to put in place better security?
JAMAL: What we do we are very closely working with our implementing partners and we also discuss the security situation with the elders of the area. Together with the communities and together with the NGOs we are trying to make better arrangements of security on these hubs, which is quite successful as we speak, there has been no incident on these hubs in the past and we are not expecting any bad things happening on these hubs. So together with NGOs and with the community's help we are trying all our efforts to make these hubs safe.
