Odia UN official recounts his Afghanistan experience

BHUBANESWAR: Dilip Kumar Bhanja, UN official and a native of Odisha, who returned from Afghanistan on Sunday, expressed his concern for the Indians staying in the war-ravaged country controlled by Taliban. He told TOI about his experience in Afghanistan during the last few weeks of turmoil.
Bhanja, a Bhubaneswar resident, has been working in Afghanistan during the last one and a half years as a programme policy advisor of the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP). “I had also visited this country before in 2018-19. Common people in Afghanistan are very nice and innocent. They love Indian people. That’s why they want to come to India,” he added.
He said the country was witnessing isolated cases of violent incidents like bombing. “Earlier, people were not taking it seriously because they were adapted to such a chaotic situation before. But the Taliban group started capturing provinces one by one in a very organised way earlier this month. And they took over the country within a few days surprising many,” he added.
The official said they sensed trouble after the Taliban captured several provinces of the country. “We were instructed to leave the country at any time. But there was no commercial flight operating from Afghanistan at that point of time. It was a very risky affair for us to go to the chaotic Kabul airport that time. Either we had to approach our government to evacuate us or depend on the agency’s evacuation plan,” he added.
Bhanja and his colleagues were planning to leave the country before, but the plan was not working according to their wish. The Taliban people had come to their office compound and asked the security officials to drop their arms and ammunition. “The Taliban group said they will guard the office,” he added.
The UN has taken necessary steps to evacuate its staff from the country. "Last week, we started our journey in a big convoy of cars to reach Kabul airport for departure. The 15-minute journey took more than three hours because the Taliban stopped their convoy of cars midway. “They were telling us not to leave the country. After top UN officials discussed with the group, finally they allowed us to go with one condition that we will return to the country soon,” he added.
As there was no flight, they had waited for 40 hours in the chaotic airport. “Afghan people were trying to enter the Kabul airport to leave the country. The airport is guarded by US security forces. On August 19, we were taken to Almaty of Kazakhstan in the UN evacuation plane. From there, I boarded a flight to India after completing different formalities. I reached Delhi on Sunday,” he added.