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Pakistan Rules out Opening of Border for Fleeing Afghans
Pakistan Wednesday ruled out immediate possibility of reopening the Pak-Afghan border for the Afghan refugees and asked the United Nations to set camps inside Afghanistan to stop them from entering Pakistan.
"There is no possibility of the reopening of border at present. Pakistan cannot afford further burden of Afghan refugees until the world community extends help," Pakistan Minister for Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas Abbas Sarfaraz Khan said.
Speaking at a press conference here, the minister urged the United Nations refugees agency, the UNHCR, to establish camps for the displaced people within Afghanistan to restrain those not entitled to refugee status to enter Pakistan.
He asked the UNHCR and the World Food Program to provide assistance to the displaced Afghans in the proposed camps.
Pakistan last week banned the entry of Afghan refugees fleeing war and economic deprivation in Afghanistan, citing its own economic difficulties and deteriorating law and order situation as the grounds.
Due to the fighting in northern Afghanistan and the unprecedented drought, there was recently a major influx of Afghan refugees into Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP), which hosts some 1.2 million Afghan refugees out of a total of 1.5 million refugees in Pakistan.
Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia has requested the Pakistani government to reconsider its decision and reopen the border for the refugees.
However, Sarfaraz Khan indicated that Pakistan could not revise its policy of closing border for Afghans to avoid any human catastrophe.
He criticized the apathy of big nations to the Afghan refugees crisis and urged them to set aside political consideration while dealing Afghan conflict and address to the issue on humanitarian ground.
He said that Pakistan had been receiving some US$50 million annually for Afghan refugees but its received only 2 million this year.
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