ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - The United Nations said on Tuesday it was becoming increasing difficult to deliver crucial emergency relief in Afghanistan after two days of U.S.-led attacks on to the battle-scarred country. (Read photo caption below) U.N. spokeswoman Stephanie Bunker told a news conference the ruling Taliban were still denying aid workers access to outside communications and that four more relief vehicles, including three ambulances, had been seized.
Additionally, shipments of U.N. World Food Program (WFP) food aid into Afghanistan, where up to six million people depend on handouts, were still suspended due to security fears over the military strikes.
Meanwhile and as winter edges nearer, the situation was becoming desperate in the mountainous country ravaged by conflict and drought, aid workers say.
Witnesses in Kabul and other cities say Afghans continue to evacuate urban areas for the relative safety of the countryside.
MAP CAPTION:
The United Nations said October 9, 2001 that it was becoming increasing difficult to deliver crucial emergency relief in Afghanistan after two days of U.S.-led attacks on to the battle-scarred country. Meanwhile, Major U.N. partner agencies have joined a rising chorus of opposition to an Anglo-American scheme of air dropping supplies of food and medicine to the Afghan people., saying combining military strikes with relief action were both inefficient and poorly conceived.(Reuters Graphic)