News: UN internal report on Algeria bombing accuses 7 individual staff members.

An internal UN report assigns blame to at least seven UN officials for one of the organization's greatest security breakdowns ever - the Dec. 11 bombing of UN headquarters in Algeria - in which 17 UN staff died, including one of our colleagues.

The report also criticizes the Algerian government ignoring requests by the Algiers-based UN staff for additional security barriers and other preventive measures, even after a local al Qaeda group publicly demonized the presence of international organizations in the city.

The assessment — the organization's third on the bombing — was written by a five-member panel led by former U.N. legal adviser Ralph Zacklin.

Even before the report came out, David Veness, the head of UNDSS, still on the job despite his resignation offer, admitted the "internal UN" warnings flags out of the Algiers office had been clear, months before the blast. The Algiers-based security officer Babacar Ndiaye, who died in the terrorist attack, had been reporting his concerns to headquarters as early as April 2007.

The Zacklin report, unlike the two previous U.N. inquiries, was intended to assign individual responsibilities within the U.N. security system for the failure to prevent or prepare for the attack, in which an explosives-laden truck rammed into the UN office killing 17 UN staff and 7 bystanders.

Those named in the report include six UNDSS (U.N. Department of Safety and Security) and the UNDP Representative at that time. (Full)

As a UN staff member, I can only applaud the investigation and the assignment of individual responsibilities. I wish the internal system would be revamped to ensuring we continue reducing the risk aid workers are exposed to. As a wise man once said: "You might not be able to reduce the threat, but you surely should reduce the risk!".

However, I have doubts the system will change without drastic measures. While we are lucky to have a well functioning security system inside our own agency, where the risks staff take are handled seriously, I am regularly faced with the stupidity of a non-functional UN security apparatus, bogged down in administration and escalation channels blurring the warning messages from or to the field.

More posts on The Road about aid workers.

Picture courtesy AP

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News: Arab Women on the Rise in Algeria

In Algeria, women drive trains, hold positions as judges and make up the majority of students. Nowhere else in the Arab world are equal rights for women taken so seriously.

Moudjed Naima, 32, wears tatty olive-green overalls, green rubber boots and a cap. The small, energetic woman is cleaning a white pickup truck inside and out. She has been employed here for a year, working every day from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., except Fridays. She got her diploma in photography and computer science, but it was little help -- she was unemployed until she asked for work at the gas station. "I knew there was a woman in charge," she says, "and I started right away." (full post)

Read also this article from the NY Times.

Source: The Other World News. Picture courtesy NY Times.

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News: Colleague Died in Algiers Bombing.

One of the two Algiers bomb attacks three days ago completely destroyed the third floor of the UN building. The floor of our offices. Most of the staff members were outside the office on a training course and therefore escaped the attack.

Amongst the 11 UN staff members that died, we lost one colleague Gene Luna (Left in the picture). Gene (48) joined our organisation in 2002. She worked in Kandahar, Afghanistan first and transferred as finance officer to the Algeria office barely a week ago.

At the time of her death, Luna, was part of our program assisting the food needs of thousands of refugees displaced by the 1975 conflict in Western Sahara.

There are still 5 UN staff members missing. (News post)

So far this year, 36 humanitarian workers serving WFP have been killed, injured or detained.

Picture courtesy WFP

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News: UN Staff Killed in Algiers Bomb Attacks

At least 62 people have been killed and scores more have been injured in two explosions in Algeria's capital today.

One explosion rocked an area near the constitutional court in Algiers, while another blast occurred near a United Nations building in the district of Hydra. Witnesses said that the explosion near the constitutional court also hit a school bus.

Yazid Zerhouni (Algeria's interior minister) said car bombs, at least one of which was set off by a suicide bomber, were behind the blasts. (Full news item)

Latest (unconfirmed) reports state ten UN staff were among the dead. This is - once more - a sad day for all of us.

Picture courtesy AFP

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