RFERL photo.
by UNA MOORE
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) announced April 27 that it has temporarily moved some of its international staff in Kandahar to Kabul and instructed its national staff in Kandahar to stay at home. The announcement came after a spate of suicide bombings, attacks on supply convoys, and the fatal shooting of a young employee of a U.S.-based development firm. A major NATO offensive to drive the Taliban from Kandahar is expected early this summer, and friends who recently visited the city have described a place blanketed by dread.
UNAMA’s decision in Kandahar got me thinking about evacuations, what they say about organizations, and how they are conducted.
Years ago, I interned for a multilateral organization that was not the U.N. and prided itself on a “leave no staff behind” policy. If a threat materialized and it was serious enough to prompt even a temporary evacuation, national and international staff alike were moved to a safe location. This happened once while I was at the organization in question. Rioting broke out near a field office and all staff from that particular field office, including national staff who were actually from the town where the rioting was happening, were whisked away and placed in a hotel several hundred miles away until the danger passed. To me, that seemed the obvious ethical thing to do.
Read the rest at U.N. Dispatch.
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