PAKISTAN: UNHCR ESTIMATES THAT 10,000 AFGHAN REFUGEES ARE STRANDED ON THE AFGHAN SIDE OF THE CHAMAN BORDER

Record ID: 275354

  • Title: PAKISTAN: UNHCR ESTIMATES THAT 10,000 AFGHAN REFUGEES ARE STRANDED ON THE AFGHAN SIDE OF THE CHAMAN BORDER
  • Date: 20th October 2001
  • Summary: (W5)CHAMAN BORDER POINT BETWEEN PAKISTAN AND AFGHANISTAN (OCTOBER 20, 2001) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. GV/LV: AFGHAN REFUGEES MASSED IN WEESH, ON AFGHAN SIDE OF THE BORDER (2 SHOTS) 0.09 2. VARIOUS OF AFGHAN REFUGEES BELONGINGS MASSED IN WEESH (2 SHOTS) 0.18 3. GV: PEOPLE CROSSING THE BORDER 0.22 4. LV: MORE OF PEOPLE'S BELONGINGS M
  • Embargoed: 4th November 2001 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: CHAMAN BORDER, PAKISTAN-AFGHANISTAN BORDER/QUETTA, PAKISTAN
  • Country: Pakistan
  • Reuters ID: LVA7E1246WWRI56CYKS0TYFTIJE1
  • Story Text: The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR)
    relief agency has said it estimates 10,000 Afghan refugees are
    now stranded in Weesh, on the Afghan side of the Chaman border
    with Pakistan, which has officially closed its border with
    Afghanistan.

    The relief agency has said that 5,000 refugees have
    managed to cross from Afghanistan to Pakistan during the day.


    Aid organisations monitoring the Chaman border between
    Afghanistan and Pakistan on Saturday (October 20) said they
    believed 10,000 refugees were waiting to enter Pakistan.

    The number of people massed on the border has dramatically
    increased since Monday (October 15) and more sharply still in
    the last two days.

    One Afghan woman spoke through her traditional burqua
    (veil) as she crossed into Pakistan. She said she had fled her
    home in Kandahar, a Taliban stronghold repeatedly bombed by
    U.S. forces in retaliation for the Taliban leadership's
    refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect for
    the September 11 attacks against the United States.

    "Last night, there was heavy bombardment and, after that,
    we left our homes and started going towards the Chaman border.

    Many people were killed in the bombing. We left without
    eating", she said.

    Another woman cried as she described losing her four sons
    in Kandahar. She said she had collected the pieces of her
    sons' bodies before leaving for the border.

    "After the bombing, five places were bombed, and I
    collected pieces of dead bodies....they were my sons, four
    sons," she cried.

    UNHCR spokeswoman Fatoumata Kaba told reporters in Quetta
    on Saturday that U.N. monitors estimated that a total of about
    5,000 Afghan refugees had crossed the Chaman border into
    Pakistan.

    She said the UNHCR estimated that a further 10,000 had
    massed on the Afghan side of the border and had not been
    allowed to cross over to Pakistan.

    "Some 5,000 people had crossed from Afghanistan during the
    day. However, the officials said only those with valid
    documents were being allowed to cross the border", Kaba said.

    Kaba added: "A crowd estimated as large as 10,000 people
    across the border on the edge of Afghanistan's no-man's-land
    was .... visible. It appeared that they were not being allowed
    to cross the frontier."
    The U.N. spokeswoman said the refugees had reported that
    Kandahar was empty, that no fuel was available any more and
    that food was scarce and civilians had been killed in the
    U.S.-led aerial attacks on the Afghan city.

    "People claimed that some members of their families had
    been killed in the ongoing aerial bombardments," Kaba said.

    The spokeswoman announced that the UNHCR was planning to
    send several trucks to the Chaman border crossing point
    between Afghanistan and Pakistan on Sunday (October 21) with
    tents, food, blankets and other assistance items "in order to
    assist any vulnerable groups and to build up a stockpile."
    The U.N. refugee agency said that, because Pakistan and
    Iran have kept their borders sealed, many Afghans have been
    deterred from even attempting to enter either country.

    Most of those fleeing their homes have, instead, left
    urban areas to seek shelter in the countryside or mountainous
    regions inside Afghanistan, United Nations High Commissioner
    for refugees Ruud Lubbers has said. He has estimated that
    250,000 Afghanis are newly homeless inside the country since
    the bombing began.

    In all, some 50,000 have succeeded in covertly entering
    Pakistan via mountain routes, according to the UNHCR.

    Pakistan already has more than two million Afghan refugees
    living in U.N. camps, nomadic tents and cities.


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