KABUL, July 29 (AFP) - International charities pledged Thursday not to follow Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in quitting Afghanistan, but said spiralling security and the government`s failure to check worsening violence has badly hurt aid efforts in the stricken country.
"At the moment nobody is considering withdrawing. It would be highly inappropriate to withdraw," said Anja Debeer, executive coordinator for the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief.
However, most aid organisations have sharply scaled back programs since the murder of the first aid worker here in March 2003, which was followed by over 30 other targetted killings of relief workers.
Two people, including an election worker, were killed Wednesday in an attack on a voter registration site in the central Afghan province of Ghazni.
"We are finding it difficult to find qualified people. People with four years in developing countries want to work in places that are safer and more secure where they won`t be targeted just because they are an aid worker," said one healthcare employee who asked to remain anonymous.
Security has deteriorated dramatically with a wave of attacks on workers, perceived as soft targets by militants bent on derailing the country`s first democratic presidential polls set for October 9, aid workers said.
The Nobel Prize-winning medical relief agency MSF announced it was pulling out of Afghanistan after 24 years because poor security was "rendering independent aid for the Afghan people all but impossible."
MSF also cited the government`s failure to launch a "credible" investigation into the murder of five of its staff and continued threats.
"We are scared that the lack of a government credible investigation and prosecution sends a message that it is acceptable to kill aid workers," said Kenny Gluck, operations director of the charity, known in English as Doctors Without Borders.
The charity was one of the biggest in Afghanistan employing 1,400 Afghans and 80 volunteers in 13 provinces around the country.
Most international aid bodies have already quit the insurgency plagued south and southeast of the country, and frozen their programs in the western provinces where the five MSF aid workers were killed.
Belgian project coordinator Helene de Beir, Norwegian doctor Egil Tynaes, Dutch logistician Willem Kwint, Afghan translator Fasil Ahmad and driver Besmillah were killed when their Toyota Landcruiser was attacked with grenades and gunfire on June 2 in northwestern Badghis province.
German charity Malteser launched a three-year healthcare drive in the province 18 months ago, but withdrew after the slayings, said Dr Jochen Burkle, head of the Malteser mission in western Afghanistan.
"The attack on MSF was an attack on all NGOs operating in the health sector in Badghis, so we pulled out," he said.
Burkle said Malteser was not going to withdraw from Afghanistan but was conducting a review of its programs in western provinces after a government disarmament drive and new political appointments had disrupted the delicate balance of power between local commanders.
"Our major concern for operating in future is the political situation in the province, our security is linked to that and we feel that Kabul is not doing enough," Burkle added.
Throughout the country, the wave of attacks has left aid organisation unable to deliver aid freely.
"MSF is a big blow. They have a worldwide history of staying through very difficult times in very inauspicious places so for them to take a decision like this was not easy," said Paul Barker, of US aid organisation CARE International.
Afghan employees working with the aid organisation had been threatened in "night letters" which are posted on doorways and walls overnight by militants, Barker said.
"We have yesterday learned there were two incidents in areas where we work, one in Gardez, and one in Ghazni. It didn`t affect us but (was a) constant reminder of the threat," he added.