GENEVA - The World Food Programme (WFP) says it has regained control of a key warehouse in the Afghan capital city of Kabul, one of two storage depots it earlier announced had been occupied by Taleban forces.
"We now have control of the warehouse in Kabul," WFP spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume toldReuters.
WFP chief Catherine Bertini said in New York yesterday that the Taleban had taken control of two warehouses in Kabul and Kandahar, together holding some 7000 tonnes of food, around half of the agency's total stock in a country ravaged by war and drought.
However, the Taleban denied the charge. Education Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi told Reuters that far from occupying the premises, the Taleban had posted extra guards to protect them.
Berthiaume said the United Nations' agency had no details about what had happened at the Kabul depot, where some 5300 tonnes are stored, and she had no more information about the situation in Kandahar.
Later, WFP spokesman Khaled Mansour told a news conference in the Pakistani capital Islamabad that Afghan WFP staff had reported that nothing was missing from the warehouse in Kabul.
"But we still have to hear about our warehouse in Kandahar," Mansour added.
He said the WFP planned to send 16,000 tonnes of food into Afghanistan in the next 10 days through different routes but the agency was finding it difficult to distribute it to hungry Afghans inside the country.
UN officials and other aid workers say local truck owners and drivers were reluctant to take food to distribution points across the country due to US-led air raids. The Taleban have come under attack for their refusal to surrender Osama bin Laden, the alleged mastermind of the September 11 suicide hijack attacks on American cities.
