KUNDUZ, Afghanistan: Food was running short as forces in Afghanistan battled Taliban militants for a third day in Kunduz Wednesday, residents said, with scores fleeing the strategic Afghan city fearing more violence.
Taliban militants on Monday launched an attack in the northeastern city of Kunduz, briefly hoisting their flag at the main intersection, according to witnesses, before Afghan forces backed by NATO drove them into the outskirts.
Since late Monday Afghan forces have been conducting a careful clearing operation, with officials warning that the militants may be hiding in civilian homes as fighting continued around the city’s edges.
“We are facing a shortage of food in the city. The prices are skyrocketing. A loaf of bread that cost 15 Afghanis ($0.22) is now 40 Afghanis ($0.60),” a resident, Khalid, told AFP.
“People have to wait in queues for hours behind bakeries to buy bread,” he said.
Frightened citizens were still trying to flee amid unconfirmed reports the militants were building up their presence once more.
“Almost all the people in the city want to leave. I have been trying to find transportation for hours today, but all cars are full,” Nasirullah, waiting in the bus station with his family of five, told AFP.
Khairuddin, a teacher in the city, said schools, universities and other private and public institutions were shut and residents were left without electricity as the main power station had been destroyed by militants.
“The few shops that are open are running out of food items. We don’t know when the government is going to begin their clearance operation to push them (Taliban) completely out of the town,” he said.
The main roads to the city are also cut off, he said.
But Mahmood Danish, spokesman to the Kunduz governor, said Afghan forces were moving slowly for fear of civilian casualties.
“We have not launched the major clearance operation yet, because the enemies are hiding in people’s houses. But soon we will drive all of them out the city.”
As the fighting continued on Wednesday, two rockets hit the main city hospital late in the day, though they did not cause any casualties, provincial health director Abdul Hamid Alam told AFP.
“We don’t know which side fired the rockets, but fortunately there is no casualties, and the hospital is open and operational,” he said.
Meanwhile in Kabul an explosion late Wednesday targeted a bus carrying government employees, wounding four people, according to the interior ministry.
After seizing Kunduz last September, the Taliban held the city for two days then withdrew from the outskirts on Oct. 15.
A US air strike during the fighting hit a hospital operated by Medecins Sans Frontieres on Oct. 3, killing 42 people.
The organization, which has not since relaunched its operations in Kunduz, had planned to mark the anniversary Monday by sending its country representative Guilhem Molinie and international president Meinie Nicolai to the city.
Food shortages hit Kunduz as residents flee fighting
Food shortages hit Kunduz as residents flee fighting
Top Australian writers’ festival canceled after Palestinian author barred
SYDNEY: One of Australia’s top writers’ festivals was canceled on Tuesday, after 180 authors boycotted the event and its director resigned saying she could not be party to silencing a Palestinian author and warned moves to ban protests and slogans after the Bondi Beach mass shooting threatened free speech.
Louise Adler, the Jewish daughter of Holocaust survivors, said on Tuesday she was quitting her role at the Adelaide Writers’ Week in February, following a decision by the festival’s board to disinvite a Palestinian-Australian author.
The novelist and academic Randa Abdel-Fattah said the move to bar her was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday announced a national day of mourning would be held on January 22 to remember the 15 people killed in last month’s shooting at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach.
Police say the alleged gunmen were inspired by the Islamic State militant group, and the incident sparked nationwide calls to tackle antisemitism, and prompted state and federal government moves to tighten hate speech laws.
The Adelaide Festival board said on Tuesday its decision last week to disinvite Abdel-Fattah, on the grounds it would not be culturally sensitive for her to appear at the literary event “so soon after Bondi,” was made “out of respect for a community experiencing the pain from a devastating event.”
“Instead, this decision has created more division and for that we express our sincere apologies,” the board said in a statement.
The event would not go ahead and remaining board members will step down, it added.
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, British author Zadie Smith, Australian author Kathy Lette, Pulitzer Prize-winning American Percival Everett and former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis are among the authors who said they would no longer appear at the festival in South Australia state, Australian media reported.
The festival board on Tuesday apologized to Abdel-Fattah for “how the decision was represented.”
“This is not about identity or dissent but rather a continuing rapid shift in the national discourse around the breadth of freedom of expression in our nation following Australia’s worst terror attack in history,” it added.
Abdel-Fattah wrote on social media that she did not accept the apology, saying she had nothing to do with the Bondi attack, “nor did any Palestinian.”
Adler earlier wrote in The Guardian that the board’s decision to disinvite Abdel-Fattah “weakens freedom of speech and is the harbinger of a less free nation, where lobbying and political pressure determine who gets to speak and who doesn’t.”
The South Australian state government has appointed a new festival board.
