- Title: PAKISTAN: BULLDOZERS DEMOLISH HOMES OF AFGHAN REFUGEES IN ZAR-E-NOOR REFUGEE CAMP
- Date: 23rd June 2004
- Summary: (W5) WANA, TRIBAL AREAS OF PAKISTAN (JUNE 23, 2004) (REUTERS) 1. WIDE OF SECURITY CHECK POST OUTSIDE WANA 0.06 2. SLV PARAMILITARY SOLDIER STANDING WITH COCKED GUN 0.12 3. WIDE OF SECURITY CHECKING VEHICLE 0.17 4. VARIOUS OF PARAMILTARY TROOPS INSIDE SANDBAG BUNKER 0.25 5. WIDE OF OF ZAR-E-NOOR REFUGEE CAMP 0.30 6.
- Embargoed: 8th July 2004 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: WANA, TRIBAL AREAS, PAKISTAN
- Country: Pakistan
- Reuters ID: LVA4QBHSMWA3877NKXCTQ4QSC76N
- Story Text: As bulldozers demolish their mud houses, Afghan
refugees plead for assistance to go home.
On Wednesday (June 23) bulldozers started
demolishing the mud houses that had made up one of the
largest refugee camps in the rugged, semi-autonomous tribal
areas of Pakistan. Hundreds of Afghan refugees watched
helplessly as a bulldozer demolished what had been home to
them for more than two decades.
Zar-e-Noor refugee camp, on the outskirts of Wana, some
400 kilometres (250 miles) southwest of Islamabad, in South
Waziristan, has been a safe haven for hundreds of thousands
of Afghan refugees for almost twenty five years. Now, it no
longer exists.
Most of the inmates of Zar-e-Noor camp had been
thriving businessmen and farmers for many years, but things
changed on June 9, when the Pakistan army launched the
latest offensive in the tribal regions after attempts to
negotiate an amnesty with tribesmen protecting foreign
militants failed.
The Pakistan operation near Wana was launched amid a
broad operation by U.S. and Afghan forces across the
several provinces of southern Afghanistan aimed at
improving security.
According to military sources, at least 55 militants
and 17 personnel of the security force were killed in the
five days of fighting. At least three civilians were also
killed.
Pakistan has battled militants and tribesmen sheltering
them for months in a campaign to rid the country of Islamic radicals but that has failed to net any top Taliban or al
Qaeda leaders.
Up to 600 foreign militants, including Uzbeks, Arabs
and Chechens who joined the U.S. funded insurgency against
Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s, are believed to
be living in tribal areas, although dozens have been killed
in recent clashes. With the launching of the new military
operations in the tribal belt all foreigners living in the
area became suspect.
The axe also fell on hundreds of thousands of Afghan
refugees who had been living peacefully in the region for
years. On June 12, local authorities gave them a 72-hours
notice to move out of the region and return to Afghanistan.
Distraught elders of the refugee camps sought help from the
political administration and officials of the
Commissionerate for Afghan Refugees. But respite was only a
week long. On Wednesday (June 23) the bulldozers arrived.
" There are between 4000 to 5000 households in this
camp, which comes to hundreds of thousands of people. They
do not have any means of getting out of here. We hope that
we will be given some sort of assistance," Sher Alam, an
Afghan refugee said.
As the mud walls fell, male refugees - old and young -
hastened to retrieve their meagre belongings. Women,
traditionally not allowed to appear in public, wailed
softly from behind the broken walls of their homes.
Weeks of an economic blockade by the government has
sealed thousands of shops, many belonging to Afghan
refugees, and also shut down the sole bus stop and blocked
all roads into the region. Due to the blockade the journey
back home is now too costly for many impoverished refugees
" We want to inform the United Nations or the world
community that these days we are faced with very grave
problems," said Mohammad Zaman, an elder of the camp.
Sixty year old Burhan Din said that unless some help was
coming, the refugees would be forced to sit and wait,
unable to leave what were once their homes.
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