PAKISTAN: SECURITY FORCES ORDER AFGHAN REFUGEES IN BORDER PROVINCE TO MOVE FROM CAMPS NEAR AIRPORT

Record ID: 275347

  • Title: PAKISTAN: SECURITY FORCES ORDER AFGHAN REFUGEES IN BORDER PROVINCE TO MOVE FROM CAMPS NEAR AIRPORT
  • Date: 9th October 2001
  • Summary: (W6)QUETTA, PAKISTAN (OCTOBER 7, 2001) (REUTERS) 1. SLV/MV AFGHAN REFUGEES WITH THEIR BELONGINGS STREWN ACROSS GROUND; REFUGEE UNDOING HIS HUT; REFUGEE PULLING OUT SUPPORTS FROM HUT; REFUGEE CHILD SITTING ON WALL (4 SHOTS) 0.27 2. MV PAN/SCU REFUGEE PACKING HER BELONGINGS; REFUGEE TYING UP BUNDLE; REFUGEE PACKING WOOD ON CART; REFUGEE PUSHING CART
  • Embargoed: 24th October 2001 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: QUETTA AND BOGHRA, PAKISTAN
  • Country: Pakistan
  • Reuters ID: LVALHNA2PXP857RE6X2RBXSPZD
  • Story Text: Security forces in Pakistan's border province of
    Baluchistan have ordered Afghan refugees to move from camps
    near the airport after intercepting a message threatening to
    down an airliner.

    Afghan refugees who have crossed the border into Pakistan
    in the last three days say they are sick and starving and need
    help adding that people in Afghanistan are tense in the face
    of a possible military action.

    The order came as rumours circulated that a United
    States (U.S.)-led airstrike on Afghanistan was imminent. U.S.

    military planes were expected to land at Quetta airport in
    advance of the attack necessitating the removal of people from
    the area surrounding the landing strip.

    Earlier, thousands of unregistered Afghan refugees living
    in tents at two villages near Quetta airport -- Khrotobad and
    Killighazi -- were given a deadline of 4.00 p.m. (1100 GMT) on
    Sunday (October 7) to leave the area.

    A police officer said that if the Afghans did not move by
    that time they would be forcibly evicted, adding that the step
    had been taken for security reasons.

    Refugees in Quetta's Killihezi area then started packing
    all their belongings preparing for the move.

    When they were asked why they were leaving they said they
    had been told that United States (U.S.) planes would be
    landing at the airport.

    The warning was intercepted on Friday (October 5), police
    in the provincial capital, Quetta, told Reters on Sunday. They
    did not specify what form the message took or where it
    originated.

    A Pakistan Airlines plane bound for Quetta from Lahore was
    diverted as a precaution, they said.

    Some of the poorer refugees trickling across Pakistan's
    long and porous border with Afghanistan are members or
    supporters of the grassroots Islamic movement, the Taliban,
    that has conquered most of Afghanistan and now stands accused
    by the United States of sheltering Saudi-born Osama bin Laden,
    named as chief suspect in the September 11 attacks on New York
    and Washington.

    Islamabad's decision to side with U.S. President George W.

    Bush's war against terrorism has infuriated many hardline
    religious groups in Pakistan.

    Afghan refugees who crossed the border into Pakistan in
    the last three days say they are sick and starving and need
    help adding that people in Afghanistan are tense in the face
    of a possible military action.

    An Afghan refugee family of twelve arrived in Pakistan in
    the last three days and stopped at the old refugee camp of
    Boghra, some 10 km from the border town of Chaman.

    Speaking on Sunday (October 7), they said they had walked
    from the Arghashan Province without anything.

    Refugees from nearby camps came to help them them build a hut.

    Abdu Zair said he and his family had no food, water or
    tents and that the nights were cold but begged the United
    States not to attack Afghanistan.

    The mother, Anadega sat in her traditional green veil,
    seeking shelter from the heat.

    She said she felt very ill but that there was no medicine
    at the old abandoned refugee camp.

    Another, Maulvi Mohammed Gul, described the mood in
    Afghanistan as extremely tense and said people felt
    aprehensive because the threat of war was becoming more real
    with every day that passed.

    Mohammed Akhabar had little strength left. Showing his son
    to the cameras, he said he felt nothing but desperation.

    "I'm sick, my child is sick too. One of them is lying on
    the ground, malnourished. We have no tent, nothing to eat, no
    water, the nights are cold," he said.
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