Taleban seize UN food aid

Agencies estimate that 7.5m Afghans will need aid

The Taleban have taken control of two UN warehouses, seizing more than half of the World Food Programme's aid for Afghanistan as a freezing winter approaches.

WFP executive director Catherine Bertini said the warehouses, located in the capital Kabul and the southern city of Kandahar, were filled with wheat, and that the losses would seriously hinder efforts to feed the millions in need within the country.

We have to keep food moving in. We have to find alternative ways to distribute it

Catherine Bertini, World Food Programme

The WFP had been hoping to double the amount of food supplies reaching Afghanistan before the winter sets in, fearing that as many as 7.5 million people are facing eventual starvation.

On Wednesday, international aid agencies called on the United States and Britain to temporarily suspend the bombing campaign so that that food supplies could be delivered to those outside the cities.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair retorted that it was the Taleban, not the strikes, which were the main obstacles to getting aid to starving Afghans.

Facing famine

Humanitarian efforts in the country had already been dealt a blow earlier this week, when US bombs hit a relief centre belonging to the International Committee of the Red Cross in Kabul.

Vital stores of blankets, tents and grain were damaged, and one person injured.

Food is desperately needed in the more remote areas

"It is evident now that we cannot, in reasonable safety, get food to hungry people," Oxfam director Barbara Stocking said in a statement, backed by representatives of Christian Aid, Action Aid, Cafod, Tear Fund and Islamic Relief.

Ms Stocking added that many lorry drivers were simply too afraid to drive food convoys into Afghanistan now that the US was bombing the country.

Many aid agencies have also been highly critical of the US policy of following up its bombs with food drops, believing the aid is unlikely to end up in the mouths of those who need it.

The people of Afghanistan were already facing famine long before the US and UK began military operations against the country in the wake of the suicide attacks on New York and Washington.

Sanctions against the Taleban regime, combined with drought and limited UN resources to combat hunger, led to warnings a year ago that millions of people in South Asia could starve.