UN aid shipment reaches Afghanistan

The aid will be a litmus test for local facilities

The first substantial United Nations aid shipment has crossed the river from Uzbekistan into northern Afghanistan.

A barge carrying 200 tonnes of wheat flour crossed from the Uzbek port of Termez to Hairaton, 18 km (11.2 miles) away on the Afghan side of the river.

The aid arrived as relief agencies warned that a humanitarian disaster was imminent, with 3.4m Afghans dependent on aid to survive through the harsh winter.

Meanwhile, a senior US official visiting northern Afghanistan has pledged more than $5m to aid agencies in the region.

Vital passageway

The UN sent a trial shipment of food aid on Wednesday but that never made it past Hairaton because it set off too late to be taken by aid workers to the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif before dark.

The shipment reopens a vital aid route from Uzbekistan which has been closed for years.

Relief supplies are being stockpiled at the Afghan-Uzbek border

Michael Huggins, spokesman for the United Nations World Food Programme, said Thursday's batch of aid would feed 2,000 Afghan refugees living in a camp some 40 km (25 miles) from Hairaton on the road to Mazar-e-Sharif.

"These people haven't had food for some time and are completely desperate, so I'm sure this will be a welcome change for them and they will have some food this evening," he said.

But Mr Huggins added that there were many obstacles to distributing the aid, including:

• Local distribution - Thursday's shipment will be a litmus test of the Afghan non-governmental organisations' ability to co-operate with the relief effort
• A lack of warehouse space in Mazar-e-Sharif
• The difficulty of manually unloading barges in Hairaton

The UN spokesman said the UN hoped to start making three barge trips a day from Termez by the end of next week.

Aid officials want the Uzbeks to reopen the Friendship Bridge - closed four years ago when Taleban forces moved into the area - running across the Amu Darya river.

It would be a much more efficient method of transporting aid, but it remains unclear whether Uzbekistan will be sufficiently happy with the security situation in Afghanistan to allow traffic across.

American aid

The most senior US official to visit Afghanistan in more than 20 years, Andrew Natsios, has been assessing the humanitarian situation in the north of the country.

Mr Natsios, the head of the US Agency for International Development, said he was giving $5.5m to a French aid agency working in the area to help it provide shelter, food and winter clothing to local people.

He said his brief two hour tour was the result of an instruction he had received from President George Bush to begin reconstruction work in those areas where there is now peace and stability.

Northern Alliance worries

International relief agencies say they are still assessing the situation elsewhere in the country and it is too early to say when large-scale relief efforts will resume.

Aid workers are warning of a humanitarian crisis

Aid groups say concerns over security under the advancing Northern Alliance are hampering their work.

The UN Children's Fund (Unicef) temporarily suspended aid convoys to Afghanistan on Wednesday after fears that two truck drivers had been killed in Mazar-e-Sharif.

They were part of a convoy of 10 trucks that drove into Afghanistan over the weekend and was reportedly seized by Northern Alliance forces.

Four other drivers and two Unicef staff members are still missing, spokesman Chulo Huyn told reporters in Islamabad.

His words were echoed by the United Nation's refugee agency, the UNHCR.

Fluid situation

"You have triumphant soldiers and desperate fighters. The front lines are unclear. We have to fully assess security before aid workers can go back," said UNHCR spokesman Peter Kessler.

Foreign aid workers were pulled out of Afghanistan after the 11 September attacks on New York and Washington, as the likelihood of retaliatory action against Afghanistan grew.

Mr Kessler also voiced concern that aid work might get harder, not easier, because of the different factions within the Northern Alliance.

"It's vitally important for aid groups that there is one authority you can deal with," he said.