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U.N. Moving Many Foreign Workers Out of Pakistan - NYTimes.com
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 out of safety concerns, a United Nations official said Thursday.
The decision, which does not apply to the organizations 2,700 Pakistani employees, will be re-evaluated in three months, the official said. Improvements in the countrys security could shorten the relocation.
The move is the latest sign of Western 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 terrorist 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 even in the tightly controlled capital, where there are frequent police checkpoints.
The move 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. Another dozen were seriously injured during the year.
Two months ago, the United Nations ordered 600 employees moved out of Afghanistan after a two-hour insurgent attack on a guesthouse in the capital, Kabul, that killed five United Nations staff members and three Afghans, including two security guards. The five gunmen were also killed.
The United Nations official characterized the employees affected by the relocation from Pakistan as generally either technical support staffers or nonessential to the core mission of the organization in the country. Members of the United Nations senior leadership in Pakistan will not be relocated, the official said, and the organizations work with hundreds of thousands of people displaced by fighting in North-West Frontier Province will not be affected.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in the absence of authorization to discuss the relocation, said the decision was made in the United Nations secretary generals office in New York. The move was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
The attacks in both Pakistan and Afghanistan influenced the decision to relocate workers. Its 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.
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 out of safety concerns, a United Nations official said Thursday.
The decision, which does not apply to the organizations 2,700 Pakistani employees, will be re-evaluated in three months, the official said. Improvements in the countrys security could shorten the relocation.
The move is the latest sign of Western 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 terrorist 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 even in the tightly controlled capital, where there are frequent police checkpoints.
The move 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. Another dozen were seriously injured during the year.
Two months ago, the United Nations ordered 600 employees moved out of Afghanistan after a two-hour insurgent attack on a guesthouse in the capital, Kabul, that killed five United Nations staff members and three Afghans, including two security guards. The five gunmen were also killed.
The United Nations official characterized the employees affected by the relocation from Pakistan as generally either technical support staffers or nonessential to the core mission of the organization in the country. Members of the United Nations senior leadership in Pakistan will not be relocated, the official said, and the organizations work with hundreds of thousands of people displaced by fighting in North-West Frontier Province will not be affected.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in the absence of authorization to discuss the relocation, said the decision was made in the United Nations secretary generals office in New York. The move was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
The attacks in both Pakistan and Afghanistan influenced the decision to relocate workers. Its 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.
