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Amnesty Asks Who Will Assume Responsibility for Afghan Refugees
WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The vast majority of Afghan refugees crossing the border to Pakistan are seeking shelter from the U.S. bombing campaign, according to a statement issued Wednesday by Amnesty International.
The London-based international human rights group called on the U.S.-led anti-terror coalition to "assume a much larger responsibility" for the refugee crisis being created by its relentless bombing campaign.
According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), nearly 100,000 Afghans have already crossed the border into Pakistan since September 11, and thousands more continue to flee.
"After having interviewed a number of refugees that have reached Pakistan recently, one thing has become very clear to me," Carl Soderbergh, head of Amnesty International's delegation in Pakistan, was quoted in the statement as saying. "All those we are meeting tell us that they are fleeing Afghanistan because of the bombing campaign."
Amnesty said that this conclusion was corroborated by findings of NGOs and others who are working with refugees.
"The bombing campaign has exacerbated the problems that already existed," says Soderbergh. "People can't work and aid is hampered. Support structures are being disrupted, forcing women to take to the road on their own and placing them in an extremely vulnerable position. These are only some of the problems."
Soderbergh said he visited two of the new makeshift camps, both of which he said put refugees at risk because of proximity to the border or because of insufficient protection from the elements. Some refugees, he said, "are using sticks and thin plastic sheets to build tents.
"With winter coming, these conditions are very worrying," he said.
The UNHCR has also warned of the threat of the approaching winter to refugees - many of whom are already suffering from malnutrition, injuries from the bombings, or from the drought that set in northwest Pakistan last year - and has said that up to seven million refugees could die this winter if aid and supplies are not able to reach them.
"…There is an impending humanitarian disaster for those internally displaced who can't make it across the border," Soderbergh said in the Amnesty statement.
Although Pakistan and Iran between them hold over 2.5 million Afghan refugees, about one million are unable to cross any borders and are therefore "internally displaced" within their own country.
News agencies reported that within the first two weeks of the airstrikes, almost 70% of the populations of Afghanistan's major cities - Heart, Kabul and Kandahar among them - had fled. Many, however, were unable to make it across the border.
Amnesty, along with the UNCHR and other groups and individuals, has raised concerns with Pakistani authorities about the closing of its border and about the establishment of refugee camps in unsafe areas, the statement said.
Soderbergh asked that the countries creating this crisis help Pakistan shoulder the burden of the refugees who have poured into the country over the past twenty years of endless war.
"They must press for open borders, refugee status for those arriving, and proper refugee camps at a safe distance from the conflict area," he said. "But they must also share the burden the refugees are placing on Afghanistan's neighbors."
He also called on the coalition to take responsibility for the refugees suffering from its military actions.
"As the bombing of Afghanistan continues it is time for the nations behind the bombing campaign to take a larger responsibility for the refugee flow they are creating." he concluded.
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