Border Afghans go home

At least 2,000 Afghans living on one of the Pyandhz river islands bordering Tajikistan and Afghanistan have gone home. "They feel that the time has come to go back home and be a part of the rehabilitation process in Afghanistan," Nickolas Coussidis, the head of the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) in Tajikistan, told IRIN from the capital, Dushanbe, on Thursday. Of the estimated 12,000 Afghans living on two islands in the river, all those living on the island known as Site 13 have returned to their home villages in the northern Afghan province of Konduz, only 15 km across the border. The returnees had crossed the river by boat and walked to their villages, where they would be assisted, Coussidis said. "We can no longer provide them [with] assistance on the islands, but we can facilitate voluntary returns," he added. UNHCR has been coordinating relief activities on the islands and providing the Afghans with non-food items. The UK-based NGO Merlin has been providing medical assistance, while the French aid agency ACTED in collaboration with the World Food Programme (WFP) has been distributing food there, along with AAR, based in Japan. The Afghans, who are classified as displaced persons as opposed to refugees, due to the ill-defined border, have been there since Autumn 2000 after fleeing the former Taliban regime in fear of ethnic persecution. "Most of them are from the Tajik and Uzbek ethnic groups," Coussidis noted. Others had left due to the ongoing drought that has devastated northern Afghanistan, destroying thousands of acres of land and thereby forcing farmers to leave the area in search of food and water. However, despite the fact that the occupants of Site 13 have left, a much larger number of people on the second island - Site 9 - have chosen to stay. They are mainly from the border village of Emam Saheb, also in Konduz and only a few kilometres away from the river. "A team of UNHCR people spoke to the Afghans at this site yesterday [Wednesday], and they said they were not planning to return home," Coussidis said. Although access to food is poor, many people living on the island have built homes there and are now unwilling to leave. Merlin is providing health care, but there are continuing cases of scurvy (vitamin C deficiency) and malnutrition. The UNHCR head said many Afghans at Site 9 were travelling to and from Emam Saheb to visit the local market and relatives. "Only recently we have seen barges full of animals and families crossing the river, but we have been told that they are merely visiting the village, and it is entirely their choice if they want to stay on the island," he explained. He added that now that they were able to move freely from the mainland to the islands they could slowly begin to rebuild their lives. The aid community in northern Afghanistan was previously unable assist the Afghans living on the islands due to the proximity of the Taliban front line, which fell with the regime last November, following the US-led air strikes on Afghanistan.