Refugees find little comfort in Pakistan

When Suleiman Shah fled the Panjshir Valley of northeast Afghanistan last week, his farmlands had become the front lines. His home had been destroyed.

After spending five days and his life savings - all $140 of it - traveling with his wife, six sons, and two daughters on a circuitous route to the Afghan city of Jalalabad and finally to the relative safety of Jalozai, a refugee camp in Pakistan, Mr. Shah faces a very uncertain future.

He cannot receive food from relief agencies because Pakistan's government forbids the United Nations from registering any more refugees. And as an illegal alien, he cannot work.

"It was impossible to feed my family at home, so there was not any option to stay in Afghanistan," says Shah, gripping his young son, whose leg is in a cast after being struck by a car in Jalalabad. It was because of the injury that Pakistani border guards let the family into the country.

"After the Sept. 11 attacks, people immediately moved away from their homes, but when there were no attacks they moved back to the cities. The people don't know anything. They are worried. God is only knowing what will happen," says Shah.

As the US-led coalition continues its air attacks on Afghanistan's Taliban rulers, relief agencies in Pakistan are bracing for a humanitarian emergency. But the UN says it is unable to give accurate numbers on the refugee influx because it has not sent employees into border areas or refugee camps, due to security concerns.

Thousands of refugees are reported fleeing the cities of Kabul, Jalalabad, and Kandahar, however, and heading either to home villages or to the border with Pakistan. It's a crisis in everything but name, as tensions grow between relief organizations and Pakistan, a cash-strapped nation that has already borne the cost of hosting some 3 million refugees since the start of the Afghan conflict 23 years ago.

"We've had several thousand Afghans coming to Peshawar and several thousand coming to Quetta," says Yusuf Hassan, spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the capital, Islamabad. Peshawar and Quetta are border cities that have received the bulk of Afghanistan's refugees. "Pakistani authorities say there has been considerable movement out of Jalalabad in the past few days.... In the next two or three days, we'll see the scope of this."

With winter coming, donor nations have already pledged some $600 million in relief aid for Afghanistan, although only $35 million of this has been received. UNICEF has given blankets, food, medicine to some 1.25 million Afghan children inside Afghanistan, but UNICEF spokesman Eric Laroche says, "It's not enough. We need much, much more."

UN food flights to Pakistan, suspended since Sunday, are scheduled to resume today with 10 flights of food and other relief supplies.

Pakistan is also facing internal unrest as a result of the attacks on Afghanistan. Street protests quieted yesterday, though reports from Quetta and Peshawar indicate a continued well of anger among many Pakistanis, especially ethnic Pashtuns.

Pashtuns are the largest Afghan ethnic group.

With reports of Afghan refugees among the anti-US demonstrators, Pakistan's foreign ministry warned that any refugees who participate in "political agitation" would be deported.

UNHCR officials in Islamabad confirm reports that security conditions at or near refugee camps are not only fragile but continue to pose a serious obstacle to humanitarian efforts in the region. Stephanie Bunker, UNHCR spokeswoman, told reporters yesterday that "work on prospective refugee camps in Quetta and Peshawar is on hold," following violence in border towns on Monday. Aid workers cannot move safely or freely, she said.

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