.U.N. to Cut Foreign Staff in Pakistan for Safety
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The United Nations is moving as many as 60 foreign employees, or about one-quarter of its international staff, out of Pakistan for at least six months over safety concerns, a United Nations official said Thursday.
The decision, which does not apply to the organization’s 2,700 Pakistani employees, will be re-evaluated in three months, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in the absence of authorization to discuss the relocation. Improvements in the country’s security could shorten the relocation.
The move is the latest sign of foreigners’ fears raised by intensified terrorist attacks in recent months throughout the country, including in better-guarded interior areas like the garrison city of Rawalpindi and the capital, Islamabad.
Militants based in northwestern Pakistan have escalated their attacks in retaliation for a Pakistani military offensive in the South Waziristan tribal area that began this fall. Two months ago, the United Nations said it was withdrawing international workers from northwestern Pakistan.
The presence of Western organizations in Islamabad has already declined significantly, and most diplomats and aid workers no longer venture out freely.
The decision follows a very difficult year in Pakistan for the United Nations. A dozen of its employees were killed here during 2009, including five from its World Food Program, which was attacked in October by a suicide bomber dressed in paramilitary fatigues.
Two months ago, the United Nations ordered that 600 employees be moved out of Afghanistan after a two-hour insurgent attack on a guesthouse in the capital, Kabul, that killed five United Nations foreign staff members and three Afghans. The five gunmen were also killed.
The United Nations official said that members of the world body’s senior leadership in Pakistan would not be relocated.
The move was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
The attacks in both Pakistan and Afghanistan influenced the decision to relocate workers. “It’s very unfortunate that we have to take a step like this,” the United Nations official said, “but we have a moral duty to our national and international staff.”
On Friday, a strike, suspected to be an American missile, killed three men suspected of being militants, the second such attack in less than a day, intelligence officials, quoted by The Associated Press, said. Both missile strikes occurred in North Waziristan, in northwestern Pakistan along the Afghan border.
NYT
The decision, which does not apply to the organization’s 2,700 Pakistani employees, will be re-evaluated in three months, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in the absence of authorization to discuss the relocation. Improvements in the country’s security could shorten the relocation.
The move is the latest sign of foreigners’ fears raised by intensified terrorist attacks in recent months throughout the country, including in better-guarded interior areas like the garrison city of Rawalpindi and the capital, Islamabad.
Militants based in northwestern Pakistan have escalated their attacks in retaliation for a Pakistani military offensive in the South Waziristan tribal area that began this fall. Two months ago, the United Nations said it was withdrawing international workers from northwestern Pakistan.
The presence of Western organizations in Islamabad has already declined significantly, and most diplomats and aid workers no longer venture out freely.
The decision follows a very difficult year in Pakistan for the United Nations. A dozen of its employees were killed here during 2009, including five from its World Food Program, which was attacked in October by a suicide bomber dressed in paramilitary fatigues.
Two months ago, the United Nations ordered that 600 employees be moved out of Afghanistan after a two-hour insurgent attack on a guesthouse in the capital, Kabul, that killed five United Nations foreign staff members and three Afghans. The five gunmen were also killed.
The United Nations official said that members of the world body’s senior leadership in Pakistan would not be relocated.
The move was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
The attacks in both Pakistan and Afghanistan influenced the decision to relocate workers. “It’s very unfortunate that we have to take a step like this,” the United Nations official said, “but we have a moral duty to our national and international staff.”
On Friday, a strike, suspected to be an American missile, killed three men suspected of being militants, the second such attack in less than a day, intelligence officials, quoted by The Associated Press, said. Both missile strikes occurred in North Waziristan, in northwestern Pakistan along the Afghan border.
NYT
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