15,000 Afghans stranded as escape route cut

22 Oct, 2001 11:08 AM3 mins to read

By RICHARD LLOYD PARRY in Islamabad

Thousands of Afghan refugees who fled the war over the weekend face death from starvation and disease unless Pakistan opens its borders, says the United Nations.

The first wave of the long-expected flood of war refugees, as many as 15,000, have massed at the Pakistani frontier crossing of Chaman, about 100km north of Quetta.

After opening the border for two days, Pakistani guards slammed it shut again, leaving the refugees stranded on the Afghan side without adequate food, water or sanitation.

Aid workers fear a repeat of the squalid scenes in Macedonia in 1999, where tens of thousands of Kosovo Albanians were trapped in a field when border guards refused them entry.

"They could be dying already," said Peter Kessler, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. "And these are not well-fed people like the Kosovo Albanians.

"They've already lived through three years of drought and now they find themselves in an extremely precarious situation. It is essential that the Pakistani Government opens the frontier and lets them through."

As tension mounted on the border, Pakistani frontier guards fired into the air, injuring an 11-year-old boy, when crowds of angry refugees surged forward and pelted them with stones.

Since the United States-led attacks on the Taleban stronghold of Kandahar over the weekend, half the population of the city is believed to have fled. Until then about 2000 people had crossed from Kandahar, a few of them by the official border crossing point but most through the mountains.

On Friday and Saturday, however, 9000 made the crossing when the border was unexpectedly opened to people with Pakistani travel documents, or those willing to pay a bribe.

But it was inexplicably closed again as new refugees backed up on the Afghanistan side close to the frontier village of Spin Buldak.

"It's a barren area and especially difficult for women and girls," Mr Kessler said. "There isn't enough water, or supplies of food. The conditions are completely unsuitable for this number of people. We are concerned that thousands of people are approaching the border."

Kandahar is the headquarters of the Taleban and the base of members of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. Over the past week it has come in for especially intense aerial bombardment.

At the weekend 200 US Rangers made the first ground incursion into Afghanistan before being whisked away in helicopters. But the American attacks are not the only reason people are struggling to escape the province.

Aid organisations report widespread banditry in the towns and cities, much of it perpetrated by the Taleban or Arab members of al Qaeda. More than 100 vehicles have been stolen from aid organisations, and the headquarters of the UN World Food Programme in Kandahar has been under the control of Government soldiers since last month.

The Taleban seized control last week of the programme's warehouse, where 1640 tonnes of wheat is stored.

"None of the local aid workers are able to work, or are even present in the city," said Khaled Mansour, a programme spokesman. The charity is moving food supplies to the Pakistani side of the border, but it is unable to reach people in Afghanistan.

"If you don't have workers in the country, you can't work," Mr Mansour said.

Some 2.5 million Afghan refugees already live in Pakistan, and the Government is reluctant to accept any more, especially at a time of angry demonstrations against its support for the bombing attacks.

- INDEPENDENT

Story archives: