Handling Influx of Afghan Refugees Needs Cooperation From All Sides: UN Official

A UN official said Monday that in the face of a possible influx of Afghan refugees up to one million into Pakistan all sides concerned are making concerted efforts to best handle the victims resulted from a highly expected military strikes by the United States against the Afghan Taliban regime.

Niaz Ahmad, the Associate Program Officer of the UNHCR Sub- Office in Peshawar, capital of Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP), told Xinhua that the work of building 100 refugee camps had started in close collaboration between the Pakistani government, the U.N. agencies and international donors.

As each new refugee camp was projected to run smoothly at a cost of 78 million rupees (about 1.2 million U.S. dollars) annually, it would need a total of 7.8 billion rupees to implement the planned Afghan Refugees Program for Pakistan, according to Ahmad.

He said that the Japanese government had agreed on a contribution of 14.5 million U.S. dollars in this regard.

Some officers from the World Food Program (WFP) and other U.N. agencies had already arrived at Peshawar to join hand with the local working staff in preparation of meeting refugee emergency most likely to take place in the coming days, said the UN official.

Earlier, the Additional Commissioner (Repatriation) of the Afghan refugees of Commissionerate in NWFP Lt Col. Abdul Hafeez told Xinhua that as many as 100 new refugee camps were in the process of building along the Pak-Afghan border as an influx of estimated one million Afghan refugees was likely in the wake of possible U.S. military strikes on war-ravaged Afghanistan.

100 New Refugee Camps Being Set up Along Pak-Afghan Border

As many as 100 new refugee camps are being built in Northwest Frontier Province(NWFP) along the Pak-Afghan border as an influx of estimated one million Afghan refugees is likely in the wake of possible U.S. military strikes against Afghanistan.

During an interview with Xinhua here Monday, the Additional Commissioner (Repatriation) of the Afghan refugees of Commissionerate in NWFP, Lt Col. Abdul Hafeez said the Pakistani government had selected NWFP's western tribal areas along the border as the venues of the planned refugee camps.

The decisions were made in order to shun away from a devastating impact on the heavily densed urban areas of NWFP if large throngs of Afghan people entered the province through the border which the local authority had closed for now, Hafeez told Xinhua.

According to him, there are 214 refugee camps located in different parts of NWFP where about 1.2 million Afghans are seeking refuge, while another 500,000 residing mixed with local communities.

"I feel so sorry about a second influx wave of Afghan refugees in the coming days, but what we can do is to make full preparations along with various U.N. agencies, international donors, NGOs, etc. to brace for it," said Hafeez , adding that tents, food, water and other necessities could be provided to those refugees reaching the new camps within one day once the groundwork were completed.






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