Afghan hunger grows with U.N. closure

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The United Nations has closed down most of its subsidized food distribution operations in the Afghan capital.

But the U.N. said doors remain open for talks with the hardline Taliban to resolve differences over hiring women for a key poverty survey.

"It is a sad day," Gerard van Dijk, the World Food Program's representative for Afghanistan, told The Associated Press on Saturday.

"I still hope that we find a way to resolve the dispute and continue helping the people."

The World Food Program held informal talks with the Taliban Friday, he said. "We hope that they will soon lead to formal talks and we resolve the dispute."

Saturday was the first time in five years that the World Food Program has not distributed subsidized bread among the needy residents of Kabul, A.P. reported.

At least 282,000 people eligible to receive subsidized bread were affected. Many people in the war-ravaged city depend on international aid organizations for survival. Hungry children, women clad in faded all-enveloping burqas, and men in baggy Afghan trousers and knee-length shirts assembled as usual in front of 120 WFP-sponsored bakeries on Saturday but were told there was no bread.

"What will I tell my children who wait for nan (Afghan bread) at home?" said Laila, a 35-year-old widow and mother of seven. She cried outside a bakery in Taimany, a poor neighborhood in central Kabul.

"We are the most unfortunate people . . . For us a lucky day is when we get bread and the unlucky one when we don't get it. Today is the unlucky day," she said.

The closure of the food program bakeries, which give five pieces of Afghan bread to 46,000 card holding families at 10 percent of the market price, is a major blow to humanitarian operations in Afghanistan.

The World Food Program says the current recipient list does not represent the most vulnerable people and wants a new survey of the poor in Kabul.

All agree the current list has been corrupted by a black market in both bread and cards used to show who's eligible.

Women must conduct the survey because only they can enter people's homes to assess poverty; men can't to it because of Taliban rules forbidding them from viewing unrelated women.

The Taliban do not object to the survey, but vehemently oppose recruitment of women by the World Food Program, saying it is against Islam, A.P. reports.

"It is our desire that the issue be resolved, but we won't sacrifice our principles to get humanitarian aid," said Usman Shaharyar, an official of the Taliban foreign ministry.

Formal talks with the United Nations are not expected to start immediately, he said.

The Taliban want women employed in the militia's health ministry to conduct the survey -- an offer rejected by the World Food Program on the grounds that it could sacrifice the survey's independence.

The Taliban have rejected a United Nations offer to have WFP-hired women and Taliban-hired women conduct the survey together.

Worst humanitarian crises

Afghanistan is home to one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. At least 800,000 people have fled their homes just in the past year because of drought and civil war.

The bakeries are the single largest World Food Program project in Afghanistan, with an $8 million annual budget.

Mohammed Yonous, an old man, said life will become tougher without the bakeries.

"The subsidized bread was a great help for the eight people in our family. I don't know what we will do now," A.P. quoted him as saying.

The bakery impasse has underscored rapidly worsening relations between the Taliban and international aid organizations, which have accused the militia of harassing aid workers and hampering relief operations.

The Taliban have denied the charge and accuse aid groups of discrimination and violating Islamic edicts.

On Saturday, the Pakistan-based Islamic charity Al-Rasheed Trust opened two bakeries in western Kabul after the Taliban urged Muslim organizations to take over humanitarian projects abandoned by the West.

Arif Ayub, Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan, recently told A.P. that he believed all Islamic charities that want to help Afghanistan are already doing so, and that he doubted they could fill the aid vacuum if Western relief agencies pull out.