The delegation, accompanied by UNAMA, traveled to Quland village where the fighting was taking place. A Jumbesh Commander from the neighbouring village of Arlat village had advanced towards Quland and surrounded the house of a Jamiat Commander. Jamiat forces in the nearby Sholgara district centre responded by capturing two Jumbesh commanders and one of their soldiers.

The Security Commission negotiated a ceasefire between the two factions while UNAMA held meetings with General Ustad Atta Mohammad (Jamiat) in Mazar and General Haji Habib (Jumbesh) in Dihdadi District in Balkh. The two gave their assurances that both sides would refrain from fighting in Sholgara so that meetings with the local commanders from both factions and the Security Commission could take place. Jamiat has also released the three Jumbesh captives taken in Sholgara District Centre.

The overall situation in Sholgara while currently calm is tense and unpredictable. The Security Commission delegation is now back in Mazar-e-Sharif and is planning a meeting with the two commanders involved in the Quland dispute.

Cutaneous leishmaniasis or Kandahar sore as it is commonly know is a serious disease caused by a parasite transmitted by insect bites that leads to disfiguring facial injuries and long-term disability. As a result, those affected are often stigmatized, particularly women and children. While there are no firm countrywide figures available, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that Afghanistan probably has the largest single outbreak of the disease in the world and that there are some 200,000 cases in Kabul. The disease is also endemic in Badakhshan. Due to their lower levels of resistance to the disease, returning refugees and other displaced persons are at higher risk of infection. Expatriates in Afghanistan also face a substantially higher risk due to the lack of built up immunity.

After an appeal by the WHO and the MoPH last year June for assistance (US1.2 million) both a rapid response and a long-term control plan were put in place to prevent this disease from taking an even stronger hold in Afghanistan. The WHO nationwide emergency plan involves a rapid intervention combining preventive and curative measures with drugs for mass treatment, insecticide impregnated bednets for individual protection as well as social mobilization, and health education to ensure that this disabling disease of poverty is brought under control.

The site of the Buddhas has just been named a World Heritage Site and simultaneously added to the list of World Heritage in Danger by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

UNESCO says the site is in a fragile state of conservation after suffering from abandonment, military action and dynamite explosions. The major dangers include: looting, illicit excavation and the risk of imminent collapse of the Buddha niches and some of the surrounding caves. Parts of the site are inaccessible due to the presence of antipersonnel mines.

The Afghan Transitional Administration signed an agreement with UNESCO last month to preserve and rehabilitate the Bamyan Buddhas in a 1.8 million US dollar project funded by Japan. The first team will work on the mural paintings and later this year a team from Germany will examine the state of the recess which housed the statues.

At the roundtables participants are discussing current practice and law in Afghanistan, human rights, Afghan national traditions and international standards in the criminal justice system. Around 40 lawyers, judges and prosecutors attended the first workshop which finished last Thursday.

The aim of the roundtables is to clarify the next steps for the Judicial Commission, to examine the existing laws in Afghanistan and how they work and to develop a consensus on issues critical to rebuilding Afghan justice.

The roundtables have been organized by the Judicial Reform Commission, the International Resources Group and the United States Institute of Peace.

These roundtable discussions follow a conference held in Washington DC in February. The conference brought together 21 leading Afghan jurists from all sectors of the Afghan justice system and was organized by the Institute of Peace with support from the US State Department. The Washington conference revealed a strong demand for training in all sectors of the justice system in Afghanistan.

One of the objectives of her visit this time is to review the so-called Ogata Initiative, a Japanese government funded programme aimed at providing smooth transition between relief to development assistance in post conflict communities. This initiative is designed to better target return communities with coordinated assistance between agencies with different expertise. Projects funded by this Ogata Initiative are in Mazar-i-Sharif, Jalalabad and Kandahar. The total contribution by the Japanese Government since this initiative began in July 2002, amounts to around US$ 90 million.

Mrs. Ogata will be traveling up north to Mazar-i-Sharif tomorrow, with a brief stop at Bamyan in the morning. She will spend two nights in Mazar, where she will meet with the three leaders in the north. Visits to field project sites include Nahr-I-Shahi district in Balkh province and Kyzalabad village, near Mazar, which was demolished when Taliban swept through northern Afghanistan.

Of course, as a Special Representative for Afghanistan, she will also be looking at the broader situation of Afghanistan -- it is exactly a year since her last visit to the country. Back in Kabul, she will meet with President Karzai on Thursday (1pm at the Presidential Palace), as well as Vice Presidents, Ministers of Refugees and Repatriation, Defence, Finance and Interior. She will also visit the Shomali plain on Friday morning, together with Minister of Rural Reconstruction and Development. On Saturday morning, she will attend the opening ceremony of the ANBP office (Afghanistan's New Beginnings Programme), which will implement the DDR (disarmament, demobilization and reintegration) set up by UNDP and funded by Japan, UK, US and Canada.

A media advisory will be issued for those interested in following her visits in and around Kabul.

For more information on Mrs. Ogata's visit, please contact Maki Shinohara who will be accompanying Mrs. Ogata on behalf of UN agencies involved in the Ogata Initiative: Kabul mobile: 070.279.006 (works in Mazar city limits); Thuraya: 008821.651.100.504

Questions and Answers

Question: Do you have any news about an incident in Dara-i-Suf in Samanagan yesterday in which six people were killed?

Spokesman: No I don't think I have anything on that. We will have to look into it.

[Following the briefing the Spokesman ascertained that there are unconfirmed reports of tensions and flare-ups in both the Balkhab and Dara-i-Suf Districts in Samangan Province. The reports circulating about the fighting deaths, injuries, and civilian casualties or about the factions involved have yet to be confirmed. The Mazar Multi Party Security Commission with the support of UNAMA is looking into the situations.]

Question: When did the fighting that you mentioned take place and when was the ceasefire brokered?

Spokesman: They left on Thursday for Sholgara and there was fighting when they arrived on Thursday and the ceasefire was brokered the same day.