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Pakistan Copes With Afghan Refugee Influx
KILLI FAIZO, Pakistan, Oct 24 (News Agencies) - Foreign aid workers Wednesday began screening thousands of Afghans waiting at the border for admittance to a new camp in Pakistan - opened to handle a growing refugee crisis.
A spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee agency said the interim camp would hold up to 4,000 people who would later move to one of three camps being prepared by British charity, Oxfam, Agence France Presse (AFP) reported.
Thirty families have already been admitted to the Killi Faizo camp close to the Chaman border post in southwest Pakistan, after 200 people were screened by Pakistan authorities Tuesday.
"This camp is only a temporary arrangement," said Fatoumata Kaba, spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Above the camp, U.S. fighter jets roared across the skies on their way into southern Afghanistan as thousands waited on the Afghan side of the border.
Newly arrived refugees from the western city of Herat, who traveled for six days without food to get here, told of horrifying destruction along the main road, which loops south through Kandahar and up to Kabul.
"Kandahar was completely destroyed. Everything has turned into piles of stones. Thousands more people are on their way here," said refugee Abdul Nabi, who came with a group of six families, AFP said.
He said he had seen two piles of 13 and 15 corpses, which he believed were the remains of civilians, near bombed out trucks on the road between Herat and Kandahar.
Despite the closed border, about 60,000 refugees have entered Pakistan since September 11, when New York and Washington were attacked.
But aid workers say some 1.5 million people - hungry and homeless - could flee the country under the added fear of U.S.-led air strikes.
"The ones who get to the border are the lucky ones," spokesman for the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) Gordon Weiss told AFP.
"If we don't get aid into Afghanistan to where it is needed, then the conservative figure is 100,000 people will die in the coming months," Weiss added.
Numbers arriving at the border have escalated at an alarming rate since the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan started on October 7.
Aid workers say the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar is 80% empty and refugees added there was no food, water or oil for the approaching winter. Electricity has been cut in the city for more than a week.
Preparations are being made to handle a bigger influx of refugee. Food, tents and water will be trucked into Killi Fazoi until Oxfam completes work on three other sites, including clearing unexploded landmines and rockets.
Oxfam spokesman Sam Barratt said the preparation of water tankers in support of 20,000 people at the new Tor Tangi, Roghanni and Darra camps was complete and work to drill a permanent water supply was underway.
The surrounding area of Chaman and Pakistan's southwest Baluchistan province is suffering from a major drought.
"We'll be able to deal with their immediate needs," Barratt said.
However, to deal with a long-term refugee population of up to 300,000 people, Barratt said 17 boreholes will be needed and their completion will take several months.
Hundreds of refugees have stormed through barbed wire barriers at the border in recent days, braving the sticks and even gunfire of Pakistani frontier guards to escape Afghanistan.
On Tuesday, the Pakistani government gave the go-ahead for development of Killi Faizo as an emergency camp for the worst-case refugees fleeing U.S. reprisals against Afghanistan.
Pakistan already hosts an estimated two million Afghan refugees and insists it cannot afford to accept another massive influx.
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