MAY
PAKISTAN: 4/5 Afghan refugees asked to leave capital
Afghan refugees living in informal settlements in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, have been asked to leave and relocate to refugee camps situated in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) because of security concerns, according to a minister. "That is one of the reasons. Also, they should be settled in our camps, where we can look after them better," Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, the minister for water and power and whose ministry is also mandated to deal with refugees, told IRIN in Islamabad on Tuesday. According to some estimates, there are roughly 35,000 Afghans living in informal settlements, known locally as "kachi abadis" (makeshift settlements), within Islamabad's city limits.
AFGHANISTAN: 6/5 Voter registration continues despite deaths
The United Nations in Kabul announced on Thursday that voter registration work would continue despite the killing of two British and one Afghan election workers in the eastern province of Nuristan. It has also been announced that a UN-government joint team has been sent to investigate the incident, which took place on Tuesday night. "Absolutely no change has taken effect since yesterday as a result of this attack. All the plans we had for voters' registration today are in effect," Manoel de Almieda e Silva, a spokesperson of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), told IRIN on Thursday. According to UNAMA, the victims worked for the Global Risk Strategies (a London-based security company), who provided logistic and security assessments to the UN-backed electoral process in Afghanistan.
IRAN: 6/5 Tripartite meeting looks at new ways to facilitate Afghan repatriation
Iran and Afghanistan have reaffirmed their commitment to the voluntary repatriation of Afghan refugees from Iran and discussed new ways to boost the number of Afghans choosing to return home. At a meeting in Kabul on 28 April, the two countries and the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) agreed that increased transport services would facilitate the return of more Afghans, as well as a waiver by the Iranian government's Bureau for Aliens and Foreign Immigrants Affairs (BAFIA) of fees paid by departing refugees who cannot afford them. The meeting also highlighted the need for the Afghan government to allocate land to returnees from Iran. The three delegations pledged their support for the inclusion of Afghan refugees in Iran in Afghanistan's forthcoming national elections, scheduled for September.
PAKISTAN: 10/5 Afghan refugee returns top 100,000
The number of Afghan refugees returning home to their war-ravaged country from neighbouring Pakistan in 2004 touched the 100,000 mark on Monday, with officials of the office of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) terming the surge in volume as significant. "The rate of return is much faster than we had initially anticipated because last year we didn't reach the 100,000 mark for the 2003 campaign until the end of May," Jack Redden, a spokesman for the agency, told IRIN at a ceremony arranged specially to commemorate the occasion in the capital, Islamabad.
KYRGYZSTAN: 11/5 Landslide kills two in south
Two people were killed by a landslide in the southern Kyrgyz district of Kara-Kulja on Monday, according to officials. "The landslide buried two people, a father and his son," Alima Sharipova, a spokeswoman for the Kyrgyz Emergency Ministry, told IRIN from the ministry's headquarters in the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh. "It was their land and they were sowing it." Her comments came the day after a land mass of some 350,000 cubic metres slid down in the Kara-Batkak area of Kara-Kulja district, killing 35-year-old Joomart Aliev and his son Bekmamat, 14. According to the Emergency Ministry, they were working in a place at high risk of landslides.
TAJIKISTAN: 12/5 EC to scale back aid
The Humanitarian Aid Office of the European Commission (ECHO) has reaffirmed its plans to scale back its humanitarian activities in Tajikistan over the next three years. Since 1993, the EU has provided the impoverished former Soviet republic with 153 million euros (US $182 million) worth of humanitarian aid. "At this point we are looking at phasing out our humanitarian assistance in 2007, providing the situation remains stable or improves," Cecile Pichon, ECHO head of office, told IRIN in the Tajik capital Dushanbe on Wednesday. One month earlier, the European Commission announced 8 million euros ($9.7 million) in humanitarian assistance to the Central Asian state - 20 percent less than its annual contribution the previous year. An additional 2.5 million euros ($2.97 million) was pledged for regional disaster preparedness - the vast majority earmarked for Tajikistan.
TAJIKISTAN: 18/5 New database to be key refugee tool
A newly established computer database, one of the first in the region and managed by the Tajik State Migration Service, will prove instrumental in assisting thousands of refugees in mountainous Tajikistan, the vast majority of whom are Afghans. "The database is not an end in itself, but rather one stage in an ongoing process of finding more durable solutions for the refugees and persons of concern living in this country," Nicholas Coussidis, country representative for the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) told IRIN in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, adding that profiling of those beneficiaries was the next stage of that process.
PAKISTAN: 17/5 Rights groups hail president's call to ban honour killings
Rights groups have reacted positively to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's statement on Saturday in which he called for a law banning honour killings, but urge more action, as opposed to mere rhetoric, to back Musharraf's assertion that the Hudood Ordinances and the blasphemy law need to be scrutinised to prevent any further misuse. In his address to a human rights convention in the capital, Islamabad, Musharraf also announced the formation of an independent National Commission for Human Rights during a landmark speech in which he stressed the need to ban honour killings through a specially formulated law. "Though honour killing is illegal, the passage of a law banning it would lend more strength to Pakistan's efforts to do away with this intolerable practice," Musharraf said.
AFGHANISTAN: 20/5 Assistance reaches flood victims
Following heavy flooding in the northern province of Sar-e Pol, food aid and emergency assistance have been dispatched to badly affected families, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) told IRIN on Thursday. According to UNAMA, residents of some five remote villages in the Kohistanat district of Sar-e Pol, recently hit by a flash flood, received emergency supplies provided by UNAMA, UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). "The flood injured three women and took the life of another as well as those of five children," David Singh, a UNAMA media relations officer, told IRIN in the capital Kabul.
TAJIKISTAN: 24/5 Heavy rains flood more than 200 houses in capital
Floods caused by heavy rains gushed through the Tajik capital Dushanbe on Saturday, damaging hundreds of homes. "Flooding caused by prolonged heavy rain affected more than 200 houses in several streets of Dushanbe on Saturday," Mahmadullo Halimov, Tajik deputy emergency minister, told IRIN from the capital, adding that no casualties had been reported. The flooded houses were seriously damaged and could possibly collapse given their construction, while mud brick homes in the area were no longer suitable for habitation, according to the Tajik Emergency Ministry. Flood victims were working to retrieve their belongings, much of which were destroyed, Halimov said.
PAKISTAN: 25/5 Six die, hundreds hospitalised due to contaminated water in Sindh
At least six people have died and more than 1,700 others are reported to have fallen ill with gastroenteritis in and around the city of Hyderabad in the southern province of Sindh after contaminated water from a polluted lake was allowed to enter the region's water supply early this month, a senior provincial health official said on Tuesday. "The figure which has been reported to me is six people dead, because of gastroenteritis," Dr Hussain Bux Memon, the director-general of health services for the province, told IRIN from Hyderabad. Memon added that a further 1,718 people had been treated at government and private hospitals for similar illnesses caused allegedly by the release of contaminated water from a nearby lake by local authorities.
TAJIKISTAN: 27/5 Major mine action donation will speed clearances
A major donation of up to US $955,000 has been made to fund the second phase of the joint Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and Swiss Foundation for Mine Action (FSD) first mine action project in Tajikistan. Both the OSCE and FSD - together with the ambassadors of Canada, Norway, Sweden and Belgium - signed the agreements to support the project during their recent visit to the Tajik capital, Dushanbe. "The money will be used to train, equip and deploy two new mine clearance teams and to increase the survey capacity with an additional mine survey team. We also hope to increase the mine-awareness capacities among the population," Meaghan Fitzgerald, programme manager with the OSCE, told IRIN from Dushanbe.
IRAN: 31/5 New death toll in northern quake
The Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) has said that 35 people were killed and 278 injured in Friday's earthquake in northern Iran. The rescue phase is drawing to a close as attention is focusing on providing food and shelter before the rehabilitation phase can begin. The forested Caspian province of Mazandaran sustained the most damage, but mountain roads blocked by falling rocks and boulders have made access difficult. IRCS spokesperson Bahram Lahooti told IRIN that the tea-growing town of Lahejan has been badly damaged, with up to 40 percent of buildings destroyed. Most people in Lahejan work in tea factories where they dry and ferment tea leaves. The town is heavily economically dependent on tea growing as Lahejan produces almost all of Iran's tea. It is not yet known whether any of the factories have been damaged by the quake.
JUNE
UZBEKISTAN: 1/6 Officials welcome foreign experts' no-torture finding
Uzbek officials have greeted with satisfaction the findings by western forensic experts that there was no evidence of torture in the death of a man earlier reported to have been tortured to death in Uzbek police custody. Ilkhom Zakirov, an Uzbek Foreign Ministry spokesman, told IRIN in the capital Tashkent on Tuesday that the findings by the international experts were important for Uzbekistan in terms of demonstrating transparency, given reports by human rights groups of "so-called torture" in police detention facilities. "The aim of inviting an independent investigative team was to show openness by the Uzbek government towards international cooperation in these type of cases," said Zakirov.
PAKISTAN: 2/6 UN tackles Hyderabad water contamination
The United Nations Disaster Management Team (UNDMT) is working out an assistance plan to tackle the issue of water contamination and a subsequent outbreak of gastroenteritis in and around the southern Pakistani city of Hyderabad, in Sindh province. More than 15 people have died while another 2,000 are reportedly suffering from stomach and skin problems caused by the contaminated water over the last two weeks. "The teams from WHO [World Health Organisation] and [the UN children's agency] UNICEF are visiting the affected areas, interviewing people to collect and compile information on the nature and extent of the water-related health problems faced by the general population of the region", Khurram Masood, media officer of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), told IRIN in the capital Islamabad on Tuesday.
KYRGYZSTAN: 9/6 Landslide risk remains high
With ongoing torrential rains and minor tremors across the country, Kyrgyzstan remains vulnerable to landslides and floods, emergency officials told IRIN on Wednesday. "The situation with regard to landslides has slightly stabilised compared to the spring, and landslide activity is going down. However, there are still landslides in both the south and north of the country," Emil Akmatov, a spokesman for the Kyrgyz Emergency Ministry, told IRIN from the capital, Bishkek. His comments came after a landslide on Friday in the northern district of Kemin blocked the Kemin-Shabdan road. The land mass of some 800 cubic metres cut off a number of villages in the area. No casualties or damage have been reported.
AFGHANISTAN: 10/6 Eleven Chinese construction workers executed
In the worst attack of its kind, at least 11 Chinese construction workers and an Afghan guard were ruthlessly gunned down in the northern province of Konduz early on Thursday. A group of some 20 armed men rushed into an isolated construction workers' compound near the village of Jalaw Gir, 35km outside the city of Konduz and opened fire while the workers were asleep. The victims, along with five wounded in the attack, were part of a team working on the Konduz to Baghlan road, a reconstruction project funded by the World Bank. Konduz was previously regarded as relatively peaceful, but this may now be reviewed as relief agencies and NGOs fear militants are expanding their operations from the south and east where such attacks are more common. The UN has suspended election registration in Konduz province until at least the weekend.
AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN: 14/6 UNHCR to help Afghans wishing to leave South Waziristan
Afghan refugees in South Waziristan, the tribal area which is the scene of a full-scale offensive by the Pakistani army as it attempts to weed out Islamic militants from near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, are being offered assistance and the choice to repatriate to their country, according to a UNHCR official. Afghan refugees living in refugee camps in South Waziristan were given a 72-hour deadline by the Pakistani government as the battle between government forces and seemingly well-entrenched militants escalated in the area's remote regions over the past five days.
AFGHANISTAN: 15/6 Millions still in need of food aid as drought continues
Millions of people continue to suffer food shortages due to ongoing drought in parts of the south and east of Afghanistan, IRIN learnt on Tuesday. The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) told IRIN on Tuesday, that food shortages were still an issue of concern in many parts of the country. "According to our survey, up to four million people in rural areas of Afghanistan are not able to provide all their food needs," Maarten Roest, a spokesman for WFP, told IRIN in the capital Kabul. According to WFP, due to a resurgence of drought and security problems, people are suffering severe food insecurity in certain rural areas. "We are receiving more and more
information of drought in expanding areas of Afghan territory," he said, adding that the UN food agency was reassessing the scale of the food shortage to address the rising humanitarian problem.
KYRGYZSTAN: 17/6 Landslide kills at least three as torrential rain continues
A landslide caused by continuing torrential rains killed at least three people in southern Kyrgyzstan earlier this week, an emergency official told IRIN on Thursday. "We got information that a landslide occurred on [Monday] 14 June in [southern] Batken district after continuing torrential rains and at least three men were buried by the landslide," said Emil Akmatov, spokesman for the Kyrgyz emergency ministry, in the capital Bishkek. According to the ministry, Abdyjapar Karimov, a local resident who witnessed the incident, approached the Samarkandek unit of the Batken district police only on Wednesday evening. He reported that three shepherds, Abdibait Karimov, 66, Bayish Azimov, 38, and Satar Yunusov, 46 were driving their cattle through the Gemerjurat district, some 70 km from the main southern town of Batken when the landslide thundered down and buried them on Monday around 0800 local time.
AFGHANISTAN: 28/6 Poverty forces children to quit school to work
While millions of Afghan children have returned to school following the collapse of the Taliban regime in late 2001, tens of thousands of school-age youngsters, restricted by economic hardship, must still work on the streets of the Afghan capital, Kabul, to sustain their families. "I would love to go to school, but I can't. There is no one else in my family to work except me," Zabi, a 10-year-old boy selling shopping bags in a crowded market told IRIN. "I was in school, but last year I failed because I was working on the streets all day," Baryalai, a 12-year-old shoe shiner told IRIN, explaining that, with a disabled father and two sisters and a younger brother to feed,
his priority was his family.
TAJIKISTAN: 30/6 Northern areas face possible floods
With warmer temperature in Tajikistan's mountains melting the snows, water levels in the Zarafshon river in the north have risen, threatening thousands of residents in the area. "The snow is melting and water levels in Zarafshon river are rising," Abdurhakim Radjabov, Tajik deputy emergency situations minister, told IRIN from the capital, Dushanbe, on Wednesday, noting that this was a normal phenomenon for the time of year, the only difference being that last year water levels were not as high. According to the Emergency Ministry, the water levels in the Zarafshon river were now some 40 cm higher than at the same time in 2003. Some 10,000 people in the area could be affected should the river burst its banks and flood nearby populated areas.
JULY
CENTRAL ASIA: 8/7 Region backslides in freedom of independent media
Central Asia ranks as the least hospitable region for the independent media as governments continue to place "serious obstacles" to the development of press freedom, according to the newly released Media Sustainability Index (MSI) from the International Research and Exchange Board (IREX). IREX, an international non-profit organisation based in the US, publishes the annual MSI which analyses the overall situation of free media worldwide on the basis of several parameters such as freedom of speech, the plurality of media available to citizens, and professional journalism. "In general, independent media are struggling in Central Asia," Mark Whitehouse, director of IREX's media development division, told IRIN on Thursday from Washington, noting that media laws have been poorly developed, remaining "non-existent" in some countries in the region.
KYRGYZSTAN: 13/7 Southern typhoid outbreak
Dozens of people with suspected typhoid have been hospitalised in the southern Kyrgyz province of Batken, a health official told IRIN on Tuesday, citing a lack of safe potable water as the root cause of the outbreak. "As of Tuesday, 124 people have been hospitalised in Batken province with suspected typhoid. In 64 cases the diagnosis has been confirmed," Inna Chernova, senior epidemiologist at the epidemiological department, reported from the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek. According to the Kyrgyz Health Ministry, the first cases were detected in late May and early June, while in the second, third and fourth weeks of June higher numbers were registered with up to 15 people being admitted to health facilities each week. Of the 64 confirmed cases, 51 were from the Kyzylbel village, not far from the provincial capital, Batken, and 12 from Batken town itself.
TAJIKISTAN: 13/7 Focus on demining efforts
For Jumaboi Shokirov, a 19-year conscript in the Tajik army, helping to rid his country of landmines is a source of national pride. "I want to do something for my country. I want to help eliminate this threat," he told IRIN, standing amongst 60 of his peers at a training course enacted by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Swiss Foundation for Mine Action (FSD) in Leninsky, 20 km south of the Tajik capital, Dushanbe. A pioneer project to demine thousands of square kilometres of the mountainous Central Asian state, the effort, now in its second phase, is already showing strong dividends. There are now three survey and two manual clearance teams, with the third survey team completing its training on 2 July.
UZBEKISTAN: 14/7 US freeze on aid welcomed
The US announcement on Tuesday to freeze US $18 million of aid to its key Central Asian ally - because Uzbekistan has failed to make progress in the areas of human rights, freedom and economic reforms under the 2002 "Strategic Partnership Framework" - was welcomed a day later by Uzbek rights groups and opposition members. "We hope the US decision will force the Uzbek government to rethink and change its current policy," Atanazar Oripov, leader of the Erk party, told IRIN, although he indicated that he is not sure that it will have any practical results. The US has been giving tens of millions of dollars in aid to Uzbekistan annually since the country became a partner after the 11 September 2001 attacks and allowed the US to use an airbase near the Afghan border. Last year US Congress-approved aid delivered to Uzbekistan came to about US $86 million.
AFGHANISTAN: 19/7 Assistance to flood victims
Following heavy flooding in the northern provinces of Bamian, Badakhshan and Samangan, food aid and emergency assistance has been dispatched to some of the affected areas, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said on Sunday. According to UNAMA, seven doctors are now in the area of three remote villages - Deqala, Bajga and Ruy Sang in the Kahmard district of Bamian - recently badly hit by flooding, as a result of coordinated efforts by the provincial government, UNAMA, the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) - coalition troops engaged in reconstruction work - and aid agencies.
CENTRAL ASIA: 21/7 US cut will restrict UNFPA's work
The Bush administration's decision to withdraw US $34 million in funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) will have a negative impact on the expansion of reproductive health activities in Central Asia, an UNFPA official has said. "We remain constrained in our programme activities due to the funding reduction," Eriko Hibi, UNFPA's deputy representative in Uzbekistan, told IRIN from the capital Tashkent on Wednesday, noting that the region was already facing a very serious reproductive health situation. "We are very disappointed to hear this news in Uzbekistan," she said. Her comments came after the US government announced on 16 July, during the 15th International Conference on AIDS in Bangkok, the withdrawal for the third year in a row of funding for UNFPA, arguing that the organisation indirectly support abortion in China.
KYRGYZSTAN: 19/7 Afghan refugees leave for resettlement in Canada
Afghan refugees have started to leave the Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan for permanent resettlement in Canada under a landmark plan that could bring an end to a lingering humanitarian problem in the region. Three or four Afghan families left for Canada last week, following the first six individuals who arrived there earlier this month. The departures will continue until a total of 525 refugees accepted for resettlement by the Canadian government leave Kyrgyzstan before the end of the year. Hundreds of Afghans had sought refuge in Kyrgyzstan, one of the states to emerge from the collapse of the Soviet Union, as war raged in their homeland over the past quarter of a century.
TAJIKISTAN: 20/7 Main roads open, capital water crisis eases
International organisations and the Tajik authorities continue to respond to the aftermath of last week's floods and landslides. On Tuesday the clearance from the roads of stranded vehicles - to facilitate the delivery of clean drinking water to roughly 400,000 people in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe - was completed. "With the help of the international community, the government has reacted very well to the current situation," Johannes Chudoba, United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) strategic planning adviser, told IRIN from Dushanbe. "They have recovered all the trapped vehicles and the main road is open again, even though large stretches of it are still severely damaged," she said. Up to 500 vehicles were trapped and an estimated 5,000 people remained isolated as the only roads linking Dushanbe with the north and south of the country became impassable due to floods and landslides brought on by heavy rains last week.
PAKISTAN: 21/7 Punjab land dispute has led to deaths and torture - HRW
Pakistani paramilitary forces have killed at least four Pakistani farmers, tortured dozens of others and arrested hundreds more in a violent dispute with tenant farmers over the ownership of fertile land controlled by the Pakistani army, according to a report issued on Wednesday by Human Rights Watch (HRW). The four-year-old dispute over the ownership of a large tract of land between Pakistan's military and farmers whose families have tilled it for generations has eluded resolution despite the killing of up to seven farmers in several face-offs. The most recent incident was on 9 May when hundreds of farmers confronted military land managers and a large posse of police who wanted them evicted.
AFGHANISTAN: 26/7 Aid reaches quake victims in Herat, Paktia
Emergency assistance, including food aid, has been sent to areas of southeastern Paktia province and western Herat province hit by recent earthquakes, according to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA). "In Paktia, several hundred houses have been destroyed, mainly in three villages; while 150 houses have been destroyed in a village in Herat," UNAMA spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva told IRIN in the capital, Kabul, on Sunday. Earthquakes are not infrequent in the landlocked Central Asian state, particularly in remote mountainous areas of the country, where news from the affected area can take days to reach Kabul.
TAJIKISTAN: 26/7 TB on the rise
The number of tuberculosis cases is on the rise in Tajikistan, with official statistics showing that the country now has more than 12,000 patients suffering from the disease. "The situation with regard to TB in Tajikistan remains a problem. It is still an urgent issue," Sadullo Saydaliev, director of the Tajik TB control centre, confirmed to IRIN from the capital Dushanbe on Monday. "The number of registered cases of the infection is rising." According to the Tajik TB Control Centre, officially registered new cases of TB amounted to 55 per 100,000 of the population in 2001. In 2002 that figure rose to 64, and went up to 67 in 2003. The TB mortality rate stood at 7.1 cases per 100,000 in 2003. The population of Tajikistan is some 6.5 million.
AFGHANISTAN: 28/7 MSF pulls out of country
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) announced on Wednesday that it was withdrawing from Afghanistan after 24 years of independent humanitarian work following the government's failure to mount an adequate investigation into the killing of five MSF workers in June. "The framework for humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan is no longer possible," Marine Buissonnière, MSF secretary-general, told IRIN from the Afghan capital Kabul, explaining that the organisation had already started pulling out of the country and would finish leaving by the end of August. The international NGO decided to withdraw after the Afghan government "failed to conduct a credible investigation" following the killing of five MSF aid workers in an attack on 2 June in the northwestern province of Badghis.
AUGUST
PAKISTAN: 3/8 Water crisis following poor monsoon rains
Pakistan's supply of irrigation water has dropped significantly after the country received almost 50 percent less rain than normal during the current monsoon season, according to an official of the country's meteorological department. "July's rainfall was far less than normal. On the other hand, colder temperatures [below normal] in catchment areas in June and July have adversely affected the glacier-melting, contributing to lesser snow melt to our dams and reservoirs," Dr Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry, the head of Pakistan's meteorological department, told IRIN in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on Monday. The water shortage has also adversely affected the seasonal harvest. Agricultural experts fear 20 to 25 percent less production of the South Asian nation's two main cash crops of rice and cotton.
TAJIKISTAN: 5/8 Early warning at Lake Sarez
Special equipment for monitoring the situation around Lake Sarez in eastern Tajikistan is now being installed by a World Bank project working on risk mitigation in the area, a step to ensure early warning for the vulnerable population in the region. "This equipment is for monitoring the situation around Lake Sarez, the dam and the Bartang valley, including seismic activity, landslides, water, wind speed and so on," Rustam Bobojonov, a coordinator for the World Bank's Lake Sarez risk mitigation project, told IRIN from the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, on Thursday. His comments followed the recent procurement of a special satellite monitoring and early warning system worth some US $1.5 million, now being installed in the area.
AFGHANISTAN: 10/8 UNHCR shelter programme helping more than 100,000
The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is moving forward with its shelter programme to provide 20,500 housing units for Afghan returnees this year. While over 3.6 million refugees have returned over the past two years, lack of accommodation remains a huge problem for most returnees. "The shelter programme is mainly for vulnerable Afghan returnees who find their houses destroyed once they are back in their homeland," Nader Farhad a spokesman for UNHCR, told IRIN in Kabul. So far this year, more than half a million Afghans had returned, mainly from Iran, he added.
IRAN: 11/8 UNHCR continues to assist Afghan refugees
The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) will continue to assist Afghan refugees inside Iran, despite claims by the Iranian government earlier this week that it had cut assistance to its refugee programmes. In just over two years, the UN refugee agency has assisted hundreds of thousands of Afghans to voluntarily return home. "UNHCR is and will continue to assist Afghan refugees inside Iran," Marie-Helene Verney, a spokeswoman for the agency told IRIN from Geneva on Wednesday, noting her surprise at the claim. "The idea that we have ceased to provide assistance is simply not based on the reality of all the work that we are doing on the ground."
AFGHANISTAN: 16/8 UNHCR battling to help returnees with water
The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Afghanistan is working to alleviate water problems experienced by Afghan returnees by constructing thousands of water points and household latrines. While over 3.6 million refugees have returned over the past two years, lack of clean water remains a huge problem for most returnees. "Afghan refugees returning to their homes after years of war require not just peace and employment but also water which is very scarce in Afghanistan," Nader Farhad, a spokesman for UNHCR, told IRIN in Kabul. Having access to water, sanitation, public clinics and shelter was the pressing need of not only returnees, but also millions of other Afghans, he added.
UZBEKISTAN: 17/8 Demining in border areas under way, military officials say
The Uzbek military is clearing mine fields in the Ferghana Valley part of the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border which have in the past claimed the lives of many civilians. "[Preliminary] work on demining actually started at the beginning of August. We assessed the area and demining efforts are now under way along the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border," Komil Jabarov, an Uzbek defence ministry spokesman, told IRIN from the Uzbek capital, Tashkent on Tuesday. Demining would also cover the borders of the Uzbek enclaves of Sokh and Shakhimardan located within Kyrgyzstan, Jabarov added. Enclaves are islands of territory completely surrounded by land from a neighbouring country - a legacy of the Soviet period when borders were simply administrative.
PAKISTAN: 19/8 Growing concern over humanitarian situation in tribal area
Aid agencies are concerned over a possible humanitarian crisis in the conflict-hit tribal belt of Wana bordering Afghanistan where a military offensive against militants by Pakistani security forces is continuing. "We are reading the media reports about the sufferings of the civilian population, but as an independent organisation we need to carry out our own assessment of the situation," Frederic Gouin, communications coordinator for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) told IRIN in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on Thursday. Pakistani security forces launched an offensive last year against local tribesmen allegedly supporting Al-Qaeda militants hiding in the tribal belt of Wana, headquarters of the South Waziristan agency of Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province (NWFP
IRAN: 24/8 Afghan repatriation convoys resume
Convoys of returning Afghans from Iran have resumed after a temporary suspension of two days due to insecurity around the western Afghan city of Herat which left some 13,000 Afghan returnees stranded on both sides of the border. "The normal repatriation convoys from Iran have resumed," Xavier Creach, a spokesman for the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told IRIN from the Iranian capital, Tehran, on Tuesday. "The backlog of returnees stranded on the border inside Iran was cleared on Friday and Saturday, with a resumption of new convoys beginning on Sunday."
PAKISTAN: 26/8 Polio cases down by fifty percent
The number of polio cases in Pakistan has dropped by more than fifty percent - with only 23 new cases having been reported so far in 2004, compared with 50 cases reported over the same period last year, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). "It [polio] is limited to just a few areas now and we hope within next six to eight months, it [Pakistan] will be polio-free," Dr Anthony Mounts, the WHO medical officer for polio eradication, told IRIN in the capital, Islamabad on Thursday. Polio vaccination campaigns were initiated in the South Asian nation 10 years ago. They later turned into a house-to-house immunisation programme in 1999.
PAKISTAN: 30/8 Over 2.2 million Afghans have returned - UNHCR
More than 2.2 million Afghans have returned home so far from Pakistan since the voluntary repatriation programme of the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) started in 2002, an official of the agency told IRIN in the capital, Islamabad, on Monday. "Over 300,000 Afghans have returned to their homeland since the UNHCR voluntary repatriation programme resumed in March this year," Jack Redden, the spokesman for UNHCR in Pakistan, said. All the Afghans living in Pakistan wishing to return can avail themselves of UNHCR assistance, consisting of a travel grant ranging from US $3 to $30, plus additional grants to help with re-integration in Afghanistan.
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