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U.N. Urges to Keep Borders Open for Afghan Refugees
GENEVA, Sept 21 (IslamOnline &
News Agencies) - The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) urged states surrounding Afghanistan to keep their borders open so desperate people fleeing the strife-torn country can be protected, news agencies reported.
"Many Afghans are not only afraid of what may happen in future, but are now - in addition to the current tensions - fearing even greater difficulties than before because international humanitarian agencies like mine had to withdraw their international staff," said Ruud Lubbers in a statement, released on the U.N. website.
The High Commissioner assured neighboring states that the UNHCR and international community would be there to assist in the humanitarian effort.
"They will not be left alone," he said, calling for countries to join forces to provide relief to Afghanistan. "If there is to be a military coalition, there should also be a humanitarian coalition to really share the burden."
As chief of a worldwide humanitarian agency responsible for helping nearly 22 million refugees and others, Lubbers also made a strong appeal to leaders everywhere to prevent hostility against Afghans and other asylum-seekers and refugees.
"It would be very wrong if they were to become the target of popular anger or of restrictive governmental measures," he said.
Meanwhile, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) today warned that an already grave food crisis in Afghanistan could worsen.
With starvation threatening millions of Afghans, the FAO said "the issue of life-saving will pose a serious challenge to the international community in the coming months."
The recent evacuation of international relief workers from Afghanistan will seriously affect the food security of large numbers of vulnerable people, the U.N. organization said.
"The emergency relief operations are likely to come to a virtual halt, even though humanitarian agencies would rely on their local staff to carry out the operations to the extent possible."
Crucial humanitarian programs such as U.N.-supported bakeries that feed more than 300,000 vulnerable people in Kabul are likely to be seriously affected.
Lubbers noted that there has been an ongoing exodus from Afghanistan for years as millions of Afghans fled conflict, human rights abuses, drought and hunger - or a combination of these.
"We have repeatedly appealed to and worked with the governments in the region to keep their borders open and to make it possible for refugees to benefit from protection," the High Commissioner said.
The UNHCR temporary mission chief in Iran, Bo Schack, said Friday it was bracing for the arrival of 300,000 Afghan refugees at the Iranian border in the case of a U.S. military strike against Afghanistan, reported Agence France- Presse (AFP).
The UNHCR is drawing up plans for the arrival of the refugees, said Schack, adding that so far, "there are no reports of arrivals in Iran, but some people have certainly crossed the border" in little-patrolled areas in southeast Iran.
Schack said no figures were available about such possible crossings along the 900-kilometer (550-mile) border between Afghanistan and Iran.
Citing Afghan opposition sources, the Iranian news agency, IRNA, said late Thursday that 2,500 Afghans were stranded at the border and that 500 other Shiite Muslim Afghans who originally headed toward Pakistan, were now fleeing in the opposite direction to reach Iran.
Iran has already accommodated more than two million Afghan refugees and closed its border to any new arrivals on Saturday. If refugees need any assistance, it is being provided on Afghan border territory.
Since the start of the year, more than 200,000 Afghans, fleeing drought, hunger or civil war in their country, have entered Iran illegally.
The Iranian government has set up seven refugee camps - five on the border of the northeastern province of Khorasan and two on the border of southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan.
The U.N. refugee agency said donor countries had pledged to assist the refugees.
The UNHCR is also in talks with Iranian authorities to make sure that refugees will not be left stranded in a kind of no-man's land between the two countries.
Separately, sources in the aid community in Islamabad said Friday that Pakistan has begun planning for an influx of more than one million refugees from Afghanistan, reported AFP.
Authorities in the southwestern province of Balochistan have drawn up plans to house 500,000 new arrivals in camps near the border.
Authorities in Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) said on Thursday that they had finalized plans to reopen 80 former refugee settlements with the capacity for 800,000 people.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that at least 15,000 Afghans have crossed into Pakistan in the last week, despite the closure of the border.
The refugee agency has drawn up contingency plans based on that total reaching 100,000 in the coming days.
Japan plans to give Pakistan $40 million in emergency aid to cope with a possible flood of refugees from neighboring Afghanistan, news reports said Friday.
The aid, totaling 4.7 billion yen, is intended to help set up refugee camps in Pakistan and provide them with daily necessities, Kyodo and Jiji Press news agencies said quoting government sources.
The emergency grant is part of a support program announced Wednesday by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi following last week's terror attacks.
Koizumi pledged Tokyo's readiness to provide emergency economic assistance to Pakistan and India as part of efforts to solicit their cooperation in America's "war against terrorism".
In reports released over the past three days, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said prices for scarce food items had jumped by at least 20% in many areas.
"The decline in the United Nations' ability to provide humanitarian assistance coincides with a rapid increase in the vulnerability of the population," OCHA said, noting that many of the people left behind in the major cities were too poor to find transport out and too reliant on aid handouts for their survival.
Most foreigners have left Afghanistan in the past week and a half, anticipating that the United States would be launching military action against the country in retaliation for the September 11 attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Afghans do not have that option. Neighboring countries have stepped up border security to block or stem the flow of refugees.
Nevertheless, OCHA said, "population movements are continuing away from most major urban areas and towards remote villages and border regions."
It added that "Afghan aid workers are increasingly concerned for their safety," and that the ability U.N. agencies and non-governmental aid organizations to help over five million Afghans in need was decreasing day by day.
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