By MATHEW DEARNALEY
Aid workers warning of a humanitarian catastrophe in Afghanistan say it took concerted pressure to persuade the United Nations World Food Programme to resume supplies to the war-riven state.
Their warning comes as Pakistan and Iran prepare for a feared influx of up to 1.5 million Afghan refugees - more than twice the number of people who fled Kosovo ahead of Serbian forces in 1999.
Pakistan and Iran are already struggling to cope with nearly four million exiles from more than two decades of war in Afghanistan and are calling for help before allowing in more.
The World Food Programme stopped trucking aid into Afghanistan two weeks ago, after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, blaming deteriorating security conditions and interference from the country's Taleban rulers.
The UN agency had only just launched a $US151 million ($371 million) emergency operation to supply food to 5.5 million of the 22 million people left in Afghanistan.
It said then that millions risked starvation from drought and civil war.
Early yesterday, after pressure from aid organisations such as Oxfam and Caritas and even the US State Department, the agency announced the trial resumption of supplies to northern and western Afghanistan.
An Oxfam spokesman in Pakistan, Alex Renton, told the Herald from Islamabad later that his organisation had already managed to truck in 1500 tonnes of food through Afghanistan's northwestern border with Turkmenistan last week.
Although foreign aid staff left Afghanistan after September 11, Renton said Oxfam retained a network of about 140 resident workers there and would also be ready to distribute supplies from the UN agency.
He said there was a fast-closing window of opportunity to provide food before the winter snows and the threatened US military intervention.
"Obviously none of us wants to feed the army of the Taleban, but millions of people face starvation by December."
News agencies reported earlier that the Taleban had taken over the UN's office in the southern city of Kandahar and seized about 10 per cent of its 14,000 tonnes of food still in the country.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned that the world would hold Taleban leaders accountable for cutting off aid on which millions depended.
Mr Renton said the Taleban had also seized an Oxfam office in Afghanistan and prevented its staff from using satellite phones under threat of execution.
Oxfam is preparing to set up water and sanitation services in more than 100 new refugee camps in Pakistan, in anticipation of up to a million new arrivals.
Local staff of the children's aid fund Unicef have also stayed active in Afghanistan, starting a drive at the weekend to immunise five million youngsters from polio.
Unicef's New Zealand manager, Dennis McKinlay, said the agency also had $US14 million of supplies ready in Denmark to go to border refugee camps.
The Government is waiting for the UN to consolidate an appeal by the end of next week before assessing what it can do, but several aid agencies will accept public donations in the meantime.
AID LINES:
Unicef - 0800-243-575; Oxfam - 0800-600-700; Caritas - 0800-22-10-22 (or 0900-41-111 to make an automatic $20 donation); Red Cross - 0900-33-100 ($20 donation).
Map: Opposing forces in the war against terror