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Afghan aid workers are the war's forgotten heroes

Afghan aid workers left behind after foreign colleagues were forced to flee the country have staved off a humanitarian catastrophe despite being isolated from outside support by US bombs and Taliban harassment.

They have delivered food, blan-kets, medicine and essential services under huge pressure and spurned the opportunity to seek refuge across the border, according to colleagues, who described them as forgotten heroes.

Cold and hunger threaten millions of people but so far the aid effort has not collapsed thanks to Afghan volunteers who took responsibility after foreigners were expelled or withdrawn. Cut off from their superiors, they have ignored the bombs and ensured a continued flow of aid by charming, bribing and defying Taliban commanders.

Drawn mostly from the remnant of Afghanistan's destroyed middle class, it is the educated elite's first taste of power and responsibility in years. Aid agencies differ over how grave the threat is of people starving and freezing to death this winter, but most agree their Afghan staff have prevented the situation from slipping out of control.

Taliban troops have seized offices, vehicles and stores of several agencies in raids which left staff beaten and intimidated, though some property was returned on the orders of the Taliban's Mullah Omar.

In a policy reversal on Monday the Islamist regime asked the UN for humanitarian assistance and pledged full cooperation with its staff, who remained sceptical after previous bruising encounters.

Several non-governmental organizations said Taliban tanks had been parked inside refugee camps for protection from air strikes and that some commanders demanded bribes for cooperation. One in the western city of Herat demanded, and received, three motorbikes.

After foreign colleagues left, Taliban troops vented their resentment of the west at the Afghan aid workers since they spoke English and earned relatively high salaries.

"The international staff were a buffer for that sort of hostility but once we left it was all directed at the Afghan staff," said Jeff McMurdo, of the International Organization for Migration, which has 150 volunteers working in camps at Herat and Kunduz.

"We see them as heroes, they are working under extraordinary pressure. We have told them not to risk their lives but often they will do so to protect our property because they feel responsible for it."

Taliban guards usually insist on standing beside them when they make their daily satellite phone call to the IOM office in Islamabad, Pakistan. "You can hear the strain in their voice," said McMurdo.

Mohammad Rahim said his fellow Afghan aid workers were motivated by the salary, which supported their extended families, and the knowledge that there was no one else to do the work. "This is the biggest drought in 30 years and we want to be part of that."

The World Food Programme and Unicef said more supplies were urgently needed but praised their Afghan staff for maintaining transport, storage and distribution.

Save the Children's 160 Afghan employees have intensified the group's winterization program despite crippled phone and road links, said Sami Hashemi, 37, who is based in Kabul.
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