UN to relocate one-third of foreign staff in Afghanistan (1st Lead)

Nov 5, 2009, 8:20 GMT

   Kabul - The United Nations plans to relocate 12 per cent of its workers in Afghanistan, including one third of its international staff in the face of mounting Taliban attacks, officials said Thursday.

   The decision came more than a week after Taliban militants attacked a UN guesthouse in Kabul, killing five of its international staff and three Afghan nationals.

   'The UN is putting in place immediate additional security measures for its national and international staff in Afghanistan,' Kai Eide, special representative of the UN secretary-general in Afghanistan, told a press conference in Kabul.

   'There will be a short-term relocation of up to 12 per cent of our staff while this is going on,' he said, but insisted that the relocation would not affect the UN's work in Afghanistan, because 'most of the staff are support staff or what I call non-front-line staff.'

   Eide did not provide any figures for the number of UN staff affected by the decision, but Adrian Edwards, a UN spokesman, said that up to 600 staff, including more than 300 international staff, would be relocated.

    About 5,500 UN workers, including around 1,000 foreign staff are currently in Afghanistan, Edwards said.

   Eide said that the relocation would include sending staff outside the country, but said, 'We are not talking about pulling out and we are not talking about evacuation.'

   The UN chief envoy said that the decision was taken in light of the October 28 attack on a UN guesthouse in downtown Kabul, in which three militants carrying automatic rifles and wearing suicide vests stormed the building.

   The Taliban took responsibility for the attack.