Relief agency abandons its work in Afghanistan

NOBEL prize-winning relief agency Medecins Sans Frontières (MSF) announced yesterday it was pulling out of Afghanistan because of the killing of five of its staff and the danger of further attacks.

The group said it was also leaving because it was unhappy with a government investigation into the June 2 deaths and with the "co-option of humanitarian aid" by US-led forces there "for military and political motives."

The group said in a statement that it regretted having to leave Afghanistan, where it has been operating for 24 years. "It is with outrage and bitterness that we take the decision to abandon the Afghan people", it said.

MSF added: "Today's context is rendering independent humanitarian aid for the Afghan people all but impossible."

About 80 international volunteers and 1,400 Afghan staff worked for the agency in Afghanistan before the June attack, which killed three Europeans and two Afghan staff members in northern Badghis province.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

It was unclear when the agency would end its activities. Many operations were already suspended after the June incident.

The pull-out is the most dramatic example yet of how deteriorating security is hampering the delivery of badly-needed aid and reconstruction.

Taliban fighters are blamed for a stream of deadly attacks on aid workers that have made much of the south and east of the country virtually off-limits. The attack on the MSF workers in Badghis, the deadliest on an international relief agency in Afghanistan, raised fears that the relatively tranquil north was also becoming too dangerous.

Police say two men on a motorcycle stopped the MSF workers' clearly-marked vehicle on a rural road as they returned to the provincial capital from a clinic they were helping to run. All five were shot dead and nothing was stolen.

MSF said the Afghan government had failed to conduct a "credible investigation."

The US military has set up a string of so-called Provincial Reconstruction Teams across the country. Soldiers are providing basic health services, digging wells and doing other work normally carried out by civilians.

A spokesman for MSF refused to elaborate, saying the group planned to explain its decision at a briefing in Kabul today.