- Title: PAKISTAN: AFGHAN REFUGEES HAVE CONTINUED TO CROSS INTO PAKISTAN
- Date: 25th October 2001
- Summary: (W5)CHAMAN BORDER CROSSING, PAKISTAN (OCTOBER 25, 2001) (REUTERS) 1. SLV TRUCK DRIVING ACROSS BORDER LINE 0.05 2. LV REFUGEES WAITING ON AFGHAN SIDE OF THE BORDER 0.09 3. LV PEOPLE WAITING ON THE AFGHAN SIDE OF THE BORDER WITH THEIR BELONGINGS 0.16 4. SLV PEOPLE CROSSING INTO PAKISTAN (2 SHOTS) 0.26 5. SLV REFUGEES SITTING O
- Embargoed: 9th November 2001 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: OCTOBER 25, 2001
- Country: Pakistan
- Reuters ID: LVA8FGO81Y3JYYG0YWWEY3GG40HF
- Story Text: Afghan refugees have continued to cross into Pakistan
while local authorities were trying to cope with looming
humanitarian crisis setting up tents and delivering food to
the fleeing refugees.
The Afghan refugees continued to mass at the border
with Pakistan in Chaman on Thursday (October 25) trying to
escape U.S.-led airstrikes against the Taliban government. The
United Nations High Commission for refugees (UNHCR) estimated
some 15,000 refugees had entered through the closed border
during the last seven days.
Around 40 families crossed into Pakistan on Thursday
telling stories of hardship and suffering.
"We were scared and because of bombing we had to come
here. My two brothers were killed, we had to walk for days to
come in this camp. People here are giving us whatever food
they have," an old Afghan man said.
More refugees are expected to make their way into Pakistan
while thousands more are already massed on the Afghan side of
the border, waiting to get across. International aid agencies
are rushing to provide food, blankets and clothes to the
refugees and to build up camps to shelter people during the
approaching winter season.
U.S. warplanes hit a crowded bus and worshippers leaving a
mosque in their latest raids to flush out Osama bin Laden from
Afghanistan, the ruling Taliban said on Thursday.
No independent confirmation of civilian casualties from
the attacks was available as the world's superpower unleashed
its sophisticated armoury against rifle-carrying soldiers in
World War One-style trenches for a 19th day.
Across the Khyber Pass in Pakistan, exiled Afghan tribal
leaders, warlords and Muslim clerics urged Washington to end
its military attacks, fearing the fall of the hardline,
Islamic Taliban would create a political vacuum that would be
filled by the opposition Northern Alliance poised on the
approaches to the capital.
The mainly Pashtun leaders, meeting in Peshawar, said the
triumph of the Northern Alliance of ethnic minorities would
lead to more bloodshed.
In Kabul, the Information Ministry said U.S. planes had
hit a bus station in the southern town of Kandahar.
Western planes also bombed the village of Ishaq Sulaiman
near western Herat overnight, killing 20 civilians and
injuring eight as they emerged from prayers, the Taliban
spokesman said.
The Taliban, who crushed the feuding northern groups in
1996, have refused to hand over Saudi-born Osama bin Laden,
accused of masterminding the September 11 suicide plane
attacks on the United States.
In northwestern Afghanistan, opposition forces said they
planned to cut Taliban supplies with Kabul and take the town
of Mazar-i-Sharif which has an airbase that U.S. forces could
use.
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