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Pakistani Province Closes Border To Afghan Refugees
PESHAWAR (AFP) - Pakistan's semi-tribal North West Frontier Province (NWFP) has sealed its border with Afghanistan to stop the flow of refugees fleeing war and drought, officials said Friday.
The move comes amid a sharp upsurge in the number of destitute families seeking shelter in the province amid fierce fighting in Afghanistan's rugged northeast and the worst drought in at least three decades.
"The provincial government has, with immediate effect, barred entry of Afghan refugees into Pakistan from different points on the common border," NWFP Home Secretary Syed Mazhar Ali Shah said.
"Law enforcement agencies have been directed to make sure that the restrictions are strictly implemented at all border checkposts."
Shah said Afghans with valid travel documents could still enter Pakistan. He denied reports that NWFP authorities were concerned about terrorist infiltration.
The United Nations says almost 30,000 refugees have poured across NWFP's border, mostly at the Torkham crossing in the Khyber Pass, since early September and the numbers were rising.
U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) officials are concerned that a "refugee emergency" is unfolding with the bitter Afghan winter on the way and tens of thousands of internally displaced people in need of help.
"We were given no warning of this decision. It came as a surprise and it's a time of regret of course," said UNHCR Representative for Pakistan, Hasim Utkan.
"I have been in contact with the relevant ministries in the capital [Islamabad] and will try at least to ensure that if the decision is not reversed it will be applied in a flexible manner."
He said the new refugee arrivals were severely testing the U.N.'s diminishing resources and more could follow unless the fighting stopped and urgent international aid was forthcoming to help those worst hit by the drought.
The U.N. estimates Pakistan is already home to some 1.2 million Afghan refugees, most of whom fled during the 1979-89 Soviet occupation and the years of virtual anarchy that followed in the early 1990s.
The Pakistani government puts the figure at more than three million, including people who have illegally integrated into Pakistani society and who are now competing with locals for jobs and resources.
"There has been some mounting tension in terms of frustration from the authorities about the level of interest from the international community. It's a consequence of the level of assistance which is inadequate," Utkan said.
Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia, which seized Kabul in 1996 and now control 90% of the country, is still battling pockets of resistance from troops loyal to ousted defense minister Ahmad Shah Masood.
Most of the fighting this summer has been in the northeast, in the provinces backing up to Tajikistan, which has already closed its border to Afghanistan.
The U.N. has said some three million Afghans are severely affected by the drought and up to one million could starve unless urgent international aid arrives in the next few months.
To the west, Iran has also sealed its 940-kilometer (600-mile) border with Afghanistan in a bid to contain drug smuggling, but Utkan said the situation there was still "very unclear."
"This decision [by the NWFP] could have some effect on Iran as well," he said.
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