While tens of thousands of people have just left Afghanistan out of fear of the Taliban, the head of the World Food Program, David Beasley, speaks of an “airlift to Kabul to bring UN employees, NGOs and humanitarian workers there so that we can do what we are in Afghanistan must do ".

Friederike Böge

Political correspondent for China, North Korea and Mongolia.

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The new rulers have not yet clearly communicated the conditions under which they can work there.

The Taliban's most important contacts for humanitarian organizations are still in Doha, says the deputy country director of the World Food Program (WFP), Andrew Patterson.

There is a Taliban NGO commission there, which was created around a year ago in the course of the peace negotiations.

The Taliban had actually asked the Afghan authorities a few days ago to return to work.

But according to Patterson, the previous government has completely disappeared.

“We first have to establish contact with new interlocutors”.

A slow process

It is about gaining access to all regions where aid is to be provided. The vehicles and storage facilities of the UN organization must also be secure from access. Some international organizations in Kabul were asked by the Taliban to hand over their vehicles. The WFP had other problems: A few days ago, Taliban officials demanded import duties on relief supplies at a border crossing and arrested the vehicles, Patterson reports. But they got it back through the commission in Doha.

Other UN organizations have already dealt with criminals posing as the Taliban. "It's a slow process," says Patterson. But by the onset of winter, when many roads are impassable, 54,000 metric tons of relief supplies have to be brought into the country so that nine million Afghans can be supplied every month. The fact that time is of the essence is also due to the lack of commitment on the part of the donor countries. The WFP is short of $ 200 million. "Afghanistan is a forgotten humanitarian crisis," says Patterson.

Fear and insecurity have reigned among WFP employees, especially women, since the change in power.

There is still no regulation by the Taliban on the conditions under which helpers are allowed to work.

In some areas, local commanders have signaled that this is possible.

In others, like Kunduz, they should stay at home.

Patterson is uncompromising.

"We need them and they must have unlimited access."

Taliban write Welthungerhilfe

Other aid organizations are also currently holding talks with Taliban representatives. "We try to make it clear to them that the female employees are important for our work, especially in programs that are specifically aimed at women, such as hygiene and nutrition training and income-generating measures for women," says Welthungerhilfe's press spokeswoman Simone Pott. As long as there are no clear rules, the colleagues would work from home. Most of the time, such conversations would be conducted indirectly through tribal elders. In the north of the country, however, Welthungerhilfe received a letter from the Taliban in which it was asked to stay.

The German organization was already active in the country during the first Taliban regime between 1996 and 2001. Pott therefore assumes that the programs for agriculture, renewable energies and reforestation could continue. In the case of income-generating measures for women, this is not yet foreseeable. Other organizations that support family planning, girls' schools or protection against domestic violence are likely to have an even harder time.