Afghan refugee bill set to top US $122 million for six months

The government of Pakistan faced difficult and testing times as it prepared for "hordes of fresh Afghan refugees", and would need massive financial assistance from the international community in order to respond, Minister Abbas Sarfaraz Khan warned on Wednesday. "For one million Afghan refugees, we will need an amount of US $122 million for the first six months, not including the cost of food items," the Minister for Kashmir Affairs, Northern Areas, and States and Frontier Regions told journalists in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. "This can give a fair idea of the extent of financial assistance Pakistan will need in this crisis," he added. Vast numbers of people have fled their homes in Afghanistan to remote villages or border areas in fear of US military strikes against Osama bin Laden, who has been implicated in 11 September terrorist attacks in the US, and the ruling Taliban, which has given him shelter. Over five million people now have a fragile grip on survival, and aid agencies have warned of an unimaginable famine catastrophe in the absence of massive, targeted interventions. The NGO Refugees International on Wednesday cited estimates that the current geopolitical crisis could generate as many as 1.5 million new Afghan refugees, about two-thirds of whom were likely to move towards Pakistan, plus more than a million additional displaced people inside Afghanistan. Pakistan already hosts over 1.5 million Afghan refugees (with perhaps 2.5 million more in Iran, including about 1.5 million officially recognised), while the estimated number of internally-displaced people in Afghanistan is over one million. As of Wednesday, Pakistan's declared policy remained that only the holders of valid visas and travel documents were to be allowed across the country's 1,600-km border with Afghanistan, Minister Khan stated. He admitted, however, that "the possibility of a large number of Afghan refugees trickling in through unfrequented routes along the long, porous border cannot be ruled out". Khan said he had constituted joint government and UN task forces in the North West Frontier Province and Baluchistan Province bordering Afghanistan, and that joint contingency planning for the potential crisis was progressing well. The particular areas of focus for these contingency arrangements included provision of food and shelter, provision of water and sanitation facilities, health cover and educational interventions, and special efforts for women and children, he added. Intensive efforts are continuing to finalise a special donor alert in time for a meeting of the Afghan Support Group in Berlin, Germany, on Thursday, 27 September, according to humanitarian sources. Pakistan has been assured that it will not be left alone to bear the burden of the anticipated new caseload of refugees, according to Abbas Sarfaraz Khan. "The international community must respond in a liberal manner so that this humanitarian crisis can be tackled suitably," he added.