AFGHANISTAN: UN condemns killing of health workers

Photo: United Nations

KABUL, 10 April 2006 (IRIN) - The United Nations on Monday condemned the killing of five health workers in Afghanistan’s northwestern province of Badghis, while calling on the government to protect the safety of those who assist the most vulnerable people. Five health ministry workers, including nurses, doctors and a driver, were killed when unidentified gunmen fired on them in their clinic late on Sunday in the Qadis district of Badghis province, according to officials. “We condemn this attack in the strongest possible terms and hope that the perpetrators will be brought to justice swiftly,” Aleem Siddique, a senior public information officer at United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), said in the capital, Kabul. “Such clinics play a vital role in providing much needed healthcare to people in remote areas of Afghanistan,” he added. The incident is not the first involving health workers. Five workers of a Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) medical aid group, three foreigners and two Afghans, were killed in an ambush in Badghis in 2004. Officials blamed Taliban insurgents at that time for the attack. “Enemies of peace and stability are behind such brutal and cowardly attacks, which will not deter our health activities in the area,” said Abdullah Fahim, a spokesman for the health ministry. In March, an Afghan national working for the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) on the National Solidarity Programme (NSP) in western Farah province was gunned down while monitoring project sites in the Bala Buluk district of the province. Meanwhile, violence blamed on Taliban militia and other insurgent groups has left many southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan off-limits to aid workers, government officials and police. In 2005, 31 aid workers were killed in different parts of the country; an increase over the 24 killed in 2004, according to the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office (ANSO). Insecurity remains a major problem in post-Taliban Afghanistan, with about 1,700 people killed in 2005 in militant violence, making 2005 the deadliest year since 2001. The toll was double that of 2004.