A local aid worker in Afghanistan explains the risks he runs working for the UN World Food Programme. (...) Last month, while I was visiting my family in southeastern Afghanistan, my mobile rang. I didn’t dare answer it. I recognised the number — it was a colleague I work with at the World Food Programme (WFP) office in Kabul — but I couldn’t risk being overheard speaking to her in English. Most of my relatives in Paktia province don’t know that I work for the United Nations. I tell them I run a private business — the same story I give to my neighbours in Kabul. The truth could put us all in danger. I’ve never programmed the numbers of my international colleagues into my mobile phone because I don’t want someone to find them there if I’m searched at a roadblock. I leave my work phone behind when I travel to the south to visit relatives and friends.