Aid workers ready for 150 000 refugees
2001-10-28 11:09
Quetta - Foreign aid workers have had to dodge land mines and cut through
red tape but, after a massive preliminary effort, they now say they
can cope with an influx of 150 000 Afghan refugees into Pakistan.
Fifteen camps capable of taking 10 000 people each have been set
up in two provinces that border Afghanistan - Baluchistan in the
south west of the country and North West Frontier Province.
"The infrastructure is there, everything is pre-positioned and
we are ready to go," chief spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner
for Refugees (UNHCR) Ron Redmond declared from Baluchistan's
capital of Quetta on Saturday.
World Food Program (WFP) spokesperson Heather Hill said one
warehouse in Quetta had been stocked with enough food to feed
150 000 people for seven months, and would be replenished as stocks
were used.
"We are buying commodities from countries around Afghanistan and
getting them to where they are needed," she said.
Oxfam spokesperson Sam Barratt said one of the biggest problems for
the British charity was securing a permanent water source at the
camps, where the worst drought in living memory has caused a
chronic water shortage.
"It's been delay after delay after delay," he said.
However, any shortfall would now be made up by tanking water in
on trucks.
Oxfam had sought to resurrect the water canals at the Darra, Tor
Tangi and Roghanni camps, all within a short distance of the Quetta
capital of Chaman, by dredging.
But excavation work uncovered unexploded land mines and rockets,
left over from the days when refugees in Pakistan feared the Soviet
Union's 1979-89 occupation of Afghanistan could spread across the
border.
"It is going to take a longer period of time to find water
because the canals have also collapsed - but there is water
there," Barratt said.
He said Oxfam was geared-up to begin drilling for water, a
process expected to take up to several months with bore holes to be
dug 400 metres under the earth's surface.
Just one camp, at Killi Faizo near Chaman, has opened since the
September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the
Pentagon ignited US military fury on Afghanistan's ruling Taliban
regime.
Killi Faizo was set up as a temporary site for the worst hit
victims of America's retaliation against the Taliban, and its 800
residents will be moved to permanent sites at Tor Tangi and
Roghanni.
But despite the enormous efforts put into establishing the
camps, they are expected to remain relatively empty unless Pakistan
officially opens its borders to the refugees.
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has refused to open the
borders saying his under-resourced country can not cope with an
expected influx of as many as two million people.
Despite the restrictions, about 60 000 Afghans have managed to
flee the three-week old US military campaign in their homeland,
mainly by bribing officials or crossing at remote points with the
help of people smugglers.
But most of the refugees, fearing deportation, have avoided
authorities and moved in with friends and relatives in cities such
as Quetta and Peshawar, in the west.
Redmond said the UNHCR would urge these refugees to relocate to
the camps and called on the Pakistan government to let them freely
transfer to the sites.
"We want the Pakistani authorities to allow them to make their
way to these camps without fear of deportation," Redmond said.
"By those refugees making use of these camps, this will help
reduce their dependency on the relatives they are living with in
Pakistan." – Sapa/AFP
- SAPA