JANUARY
AFGHANISTAN: More than two million returned home in 2002
As the year ends, more than two million Afghan refugees and displaced persons have returned to their country and communities from the neighbouring states and camps inside Afghanistan in one of the largest repatriation efforts in decades. "It's more than we initially expected. Of course, we do not promote [repatriation] or push people to go back to their country," Maki Shinohara, a spokeswoman for the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told IRIN from the Afghan capital, Kabul, on 1 January. According to the refugee agency, more than 1.8 million Afghans went home with the help of UNHCR from Pakistan, Iran and Central Asian states.
UZBEKISTAN: Human rights activist released
In neighbouring Uzbekistan, the Associated Press reported the release of a prominent human rights defender, Yelena Urlayeva, on 2 January, after being held for four months in a hospital for forcible psychiatric treatment. The police hold a tight reign over rights activists in this Central Asian republic and rare attempts at public protest are usually blocked. Activists maintain that psychiatric treatment is being used as a way to silence dissidents - a common practice in Uzbekistan, which has also come under severe international criticism for its poor human rights record and reluctance to carry out democratic reforms.
AFGHANISTAN: Effort to contain whooping-cough outbreak
Various UN agencies and NGOs, together with the governments of Afghanistan and neighbouring Tajikistan, are working to contain an outbreak of whooping cough in the remote northeastern Afghan province of Badakhshan, which is threatening the lives of an estimated 40,000 infants and children. "We are on the ground and doing our best to improve the situation," Yon Fleerackers, an epidemiologist with the World Health Organisation (WHO), told IRIN from the Afghan capital, Kabul, on 6 January. An emergency team of officials from the Afghan health ministry, WHO and the Aga Khan Development Network went into Darvaz District in Badakhshan to try and tackle the outbreak. "In similar settings, we would expect a 15 percent mortality rate," he said.
AFGHANISTAN: Security concerns in Zabul province
Following three separate incidents over the past two weeks, aid officials are concerned over security in the remote southeastern Afghan province of Zabul. Ravaged by more than four years of drought, Zabul is one of the poorest of the beleaguered nation's 32 provinces. "We are concerned over the security situation in Zabul," Mohammed Hassan, a coordinator for the Afghan Development Agency (ADA), an umbrella body for some 20 aid agencies working in the province, told IRIN from the former Taliban stronghold, of Kandahar on 8 January. "The situation is getting worse."
TAJIKISTAN: Severe winter weather taking its toll
Conditions in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, are slowly returning to normal following severe winter conditions but concern remains for those in isolated regions. "There was no electricity, no gas and water failure in many places [in Dushanbe]," Maarouf Muhamedov, the programme assistant for the Office of Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Dushanbe, told IRIN on 7 January. With a population of some 800,000 people, Dushanbe was virtually crippled when harsh weather struck in early December, leaving fuel supplies at an all-time low, damaging pipes and causing chaos for the city's transport system. "It was a very difficult time, but we do expect these conditions during the winter," Muhamedov added.
TAJIKISTAN: IOM peace-building efforts continue
As part of its continuing peace building efforts in Tajikistan, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has launched a new programme to reintegrate some 550 former combatants, amnestied detainees, displaced persons and unemployed young people back into their communities. "The most important aspect of this programme is peace-building in local communities," Igor Bosc, IOM chief of mission, told IRIN from the Tajik capital, Dushanbe. "Tajikistan has gone through a difficult recent history so it is important such programmes exist in rural communities - in particular to promote employment among individuals that might otherwise be tempted to get involved in illegal activities."
KYRGYSTAN: Death penalty moratorium
In a move widely regarded as showing respect for universal human rights, Kyrgyzstan's President Askar Akayev signed a decree on 8 January to prolong the four-year-long moratorium on the death penalty in the small Central Asian nation for another year. While capital punishment is imposed in the former Soviet republic, Akayev imposed a two-year moratorium on the death penalty in December 1998 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the UN universal declaration of human rights. It was extended in the two subsequent years and, according to the new decree, will remain effective until the end of this year.
AFGHANISTAN: Rural women to benefit from 14 new centres
Thousands of Afghan women are set to benefit from 14 women's centres set up by the Ministry of Women's Affairs with help from a project set up by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and funded by USAID. "The use of the centres will be largely up to the Ministry of Women's Affairs, but we can rely on there being income generation, literacy and health education projects," Jarrett Blanc, the programme manager for IOM's Afghanistan Transition Initiative (ATI), told IRIN, from the Afghan capital, Kabul on 13 January.
AFGHANISTAN: Cold spell kills refugee children
The office for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Pakistan confirmed to IRIN on 13 January, the deaths of children in Afghan refugees camps on Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. "We know that there have been some deaths, most probably due to the cold weather, but we don't have any numbers yet," a UNHCR spokesman, Jack Redden, told IRIN, in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. The deaths are said to have occurred at camps in the Bajaur Agency, some 100 km, north of Peshawar, the provincial capital of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP).
PAKISTAN: Water supplies resume for Afghan refugees
Water supplies to refugees at a settlement in Pakistan's tribal areas resumed on 16 January, after negotiations and a different route was identified for tankers to use, following a blockade by local residents. "We have found a new transport route for the tankers and the water supply is normal so the refugees will not be affected," commissioner for Afghan refugees in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), Mushtaq Ahmad Alizai, told IRIN from the provincial capital, Peshawar.
AFGHANISTAN: Whooping cough outbreak under control
Following emergency efforts by aid agencies and the Afghan government, a whooping cough outbreak that threatened the lives of some 40,000 children in two remote districts of Afghanistan's northeastern province of Badakhshan. The province borders Tajikistan. "Our intervention was quite successful in containing the epidemic and preventing any complication that might occur," Yon Fleerackers, an epidemiologist with the World Health Organisation (WHO), told IRIN from the Khvahan District of Badakhshan on 21 January. The outbreak had been reported in the region earlier this month, prompting aid agencies to deploy there.
PAKISTAN: New programme to boost literacy
Sitting on a canvas mat in a dark, cold classroom in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP), seven-year-old, Reshma tries to read her book. "I want to read so that I can be a doctor," she told IRIN in the town of Mardan, some 150 km northwest of Pakistan's capital, Islamabad on 22 January. Although she is being taught in a crumbling government school in Jhandarpur village in Mardan district, she is attending a new non-formal education centre, that authorities hope will meet the huge educational needs in rural Pakistan.
PAKISTAN: Multi-million dollar drought package announced
Aid workers have welcomed Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali's announcement on Wednesday of a US $33-million relief package for the five-year-long drought in Pakistan's southwestern province of Balochistan, but say much more is needed. "Any aid that mitigates the effects of drought is welcome," Nasrullah Bareach, a local aid worker told IRIN from Balochistan's provincial capital, Quetta, on 23 January.
TAJIKISTAN: Measles outbreak contained by mass vaccination
Government health workers along with international aid agencies and the United Nations have managed to contain a measles outbreak in eastern Tajikistan, following one of the biggest vaccination campaigns in the country. The mass-immunusation reached more than 65,000 children in the region. "We have managed to control the outbreak and this is a real achievement for all those involved including the government in one of the biggest efforts ever seen," country manager for Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF), Tajikistan, Paul McPhun told IRIN from the capital, Dushanbe on 23 January.
AFGHANISTAN: Mine clearance continues despite bomb attack
UN officials say mine-clearance operations will continue despite a bomb blast at a UN building in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif on 26 January. "We are not suspending our operations and work will continue as normal," Abdul Latif Matin, the operations officer for the UN Mine Action Centre for Afghanistan (MACA), told IRIN in the capital, Kabul, on 24 January.
AFGHANISTAN: IDPs in Kabul face bleak conditions
As winter temperatures drop, conditions for some 4,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) within the Afghan capital, Kabul, remain bleak. The city has seen a major influx of returnees, many of whom lack adequate shelter and food. "We have no firewood to even make tea," Qandi Gul, a 40-year-old widow standing in front of her tent with her three bare-foot children told IRIN at the Chaman Huzuri IDP camp in Kabul on 23 January. All her children had coughs, she said, warning that many children would die in the camp if it snowed.
AFGHANISTAN: UNHCR temporarily suspends work in Nangarhar
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has temporarily suspended its activities in three separate districts of the eastern province of Nangarhar. The announcement follows Sunday's attack on a two-vehicle convoy of the agency, leaving two dead and one injured. "UNHCR, in consultation with other UN agencies, has temporarily suspended its missions in the districts of Khogyani, Kunar and Hesarak districts of Nangarhar province," assistant public information officer for the refugee agency, Mohammad Nader Farhad told IRIN in the Afghan capital, Kabul on 20 January.
PAKISTAN: UNHCR concerned over refugee arrests
The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has expressed deep concern over the arrest of some 270 Afghan refugees over the past week in the city of Rawalpindi in Pakistan's Punjab Province. "We have written expressing concern to the authorities and have been in touch with them in the provincial capital, Lahore," spokesman for UNHCR in the capital, Islamabad, Jack Redden told IRIN on 31 January.
FEBRUARY
AFGHANISTAN: Poor security in the southeast hampers humanitarian aid
International aid agencies remain cautious following the recent spate of violence in southeastern Afghanistan. "We are curtailing the staff movements and operations in the outlying areas," James White, South Asia director of the-US based NGO, Mercy Crops, told IRIN in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on 7 February. "Recently there has been a pretty significant increase in insecurity around [the southeastern city of] Kandahar that is concerning and disturbing," he said, adding that some violent incidents had targeted international aid agencies in the area.
AFGHANISTAN: Continuing repatriation could cause destabilisation, says NGO
The Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU), an independent research institution, recently issued a report saying that the Afghan government and the aid community had been premature in encouraging the return of nearly two million refugees in 2002. "Certainly, mistakes were made by the international community and by the government in Afghanistan in encouraging a wide range of refugees to return," Andrew Wilder, AREU's director, told IRIN in the capital, Kabul on 6 February.
AFGHANISTAN: Coalition forces launch reconstruction in Gardez
Last weekend marked the opening of the Coalition forces' first Civil-Military Operations Centre (CMOC) for reconstruction in the southern Afghanistan province of Paktia, marking a strategic shift from battling Taliban and Al-Qaeda renegades to reconstruction work. "We are not dealing only with security, we want to help the reconstruction of Afghanistan," Robert Finn, United States ambassador to Afghanistan, told IRIN in the provincial capital, Gardez on 5 January.
AFGHANISTAN: Mass tetanus vaccination underway
The United Nations children's organisation UNICEF has begun a week-long campaign to immunise 740,000 Afghan women aged 15-45 against tetanus in four major Afghan cities as a part of a three-year plan to vaccinate over four million women who are threatened by the disease. "In Afghanistan, 90 percent of women are at risk of getting Tetanus," Doctor Francois Gasse, a senior project officer of UNICEF told IRIN on 2 February, in the Afghan capital, Kabul.
PAKISTAN: Dispute endangers thousands of Afghan refugees
International aid agencies have expressed concern over supplies to thousands of Afghan refugees in camps in southwestern Pakistan, following a blockade by landlords in protest at the employment of security guards at the camp, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). "Our main concern is that food, water and sanitation supplies are being interrupted, putting people's lives at stake," senior media and communications officer for the US-based Mercy Corps NGO, Cassandra Nelson told IRIN in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad on 4 February.
KYRGYZSTAN: New constitution approved
An overwhelming majority of voters in Kyrgyzstan approved a new constitution and voted to keep President Askar Akayev in office until the end of his term in 2005, according to final results from a controversial referendum released on 6 February. Election officials said three out of four voters approved the new constitution which the government says provides for a more equal balance of power between president and parliament. A similar number agreed that Akayev should remain in office until December 2005. On the same day, the country's Central Electoral Commission denied allegations of voting irregularities leveled by the opposition and international democratic institutions.
AFGHANISTAN: New ISAF command
German Defence Minister Peter Struck announced on Monday 10 February that the new German-Dutch led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan had many challenges ahead. ISAF, for more than a year now, has played an important policing/security role in the capital Kabul only, despite pleas from the government and NGOs that its mandate be extended to other parts of the country.
KAZAKHSTAN: Drop in HIV/AIDS figures
Meanwhile in Kazakhstan, state media announced this week that according to government statistics, there had been a major drop in new HIV/AIDS cases in the northern Pavlodar region. There were 439 new HIV cases registered in the region in 2001. This dropped to 173 in 2002, the report said. Doctors at the centre believe that the reduction comes as a result of the active syringe exchange points, which exchanged 99,000 syringes in 2001 and 550,000 in 2002. HIV/AIDS is a rapidly expanding problem in Central Asia's largest state and observers say official figures do not accurately reflect the extent of the epidemic.
AFGHANISTAN: Aid workers told to remain cautious
The United Nations in Afghanistan has warned staff to remain cautious following anonymous threats warning of increased retaliation in the context of the possibility of a war in Iraq. "We have been cautious, because some of the [militant] elements have been saying that they will increase retaliation here if there is a war in Iraq," David Singh, the public information officer for the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, told IRIN from the capital, Kabul, on 21 February. The comments follow a UN statement on Thursday, directing staff to remain vigilant due to possible terrorist activity. Singh, however, emphasised that the warning was standard. "This is not abnormal, there is nothing new about the statement, and it's not coming out of the blue," he said.
AFGHANISTAN: IOM office comes under bomb attack
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) told IRIN on 20 February its offices in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz had come under bomb attack earlier in the week. "On Tuesday night there were two explosions, one inside and the other just outside the IOM compound," Jarrett Blanc, an IOM programme manager in the Afghan capital, Kabul, said. "Nobody was hurt. Only seventeen windows of the compound building were blown out," Blanc explained, adding, however, the IOM had not delayed or suspended its operations as a result of the incident.
AFGHANISTAN: Key humanitarian route expected to reopen
In Afghanistan, avalanches have blocked the Salang tunnel, the main access route from the capital, Kabul, to northern provinces and the only all-weather direct route between the north and south of the country. The tunnel has been blocked by heavy snow for the past three days, the longest closure this year, thereby severely hampering the movement of people and goods, including humanitarian supplies. "Our aim is to keep it [the Salang tunnel] open every day. We are trying our best to open it soon," Stephane Nicolas, country director of the French aid agency, ACTED, told IRIN from Kabul on 17 February. ACTED has sent experts to Salang, about 150 km north of Kabul, to clear the remaining snow - that could fall and block the route - with controlled explosions.
PAKISTAN: WFP warns of aid suspension for Afghan refugees
The World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that it might be forced to suspend food aid for Afghan refugees in Pakistan as early as next month if donors do not meet a US $24 million appeal for aid for about 300,000 of them currently in the country. "There might be a pipeline break fairly soon in March. So far we have received pledges in trickles and drops," Reza Sultan, a spokesman for WFP, told IRIN in the capital, Islamabad, on 18 February. "We really need an acceleration in the process from the donor community in order to meet the food needs of these poor refugees." Last month, the agency asked donors to contribute $24 million towards a programme to supply about 65,000 mt of food to 288,000 Afghan refugees in 16 camps throughout 2003 in the southwestern province of Balochistan and the North West Frontier Province, both bordering Afghanistan.
PAKISTAN: Death and devastation following severe winter weather
Heavy rains and snow across Pakistan have battered parts of the country, with reports of deaths and devastation caused to land and households. "We are investigating the matter. We cannot determine the exact damage yet, but houses have been destroyed, cattle and other possessions washed away and people have died," Ali Nawaz Mallah, a government relief official, told IRIN from the southern port city of Karachi on 18 February. Local media reported that five people, including two women, were killed and about 35 injured as a tornado killed two people in Gadap town, some 30 km north of Karachi on Monday. More than 80 houses and a couple of poultry farms were also destroyed, while a large number of livestock perished in the violent storm that hit the two villages. The stormy winds were followed by rain that continued for hours.
AFGHANISTAN: Two children die from suspected meningitis
The World Health Organisation (WHO) in Afghanistan confirmed to IRIN on 27 February, the deaths of two children in Vardak Province to the southwest of the capital, Kabul, with the cause suspected to be meningitis, but stressed that they were isolated cases. "A team of health experts from the Afghan Ministry of Health [MOH] and WHO have just returned from the area today and believe the cause of death to be meningitis," Dr Asadullah Taqdeer of the national office for WHO's emergency and humanitarian action (EHA), told IRIN in Kabul. The victims were two girls, one aged four and the other aged seven in the village of Tizak in the Behsud District of Vardak Province. "There have been lots of rumours on the scale of the problem lately which are simply not true, and that is why we sent a team there," he added.
PAKISTAN: Growing concern over drug addiction rate
In its new annual report, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), an independent body set up under international treaty, has expressed concern over the resurgence of poppy cultivation in Pakistan, coupled with spiralling addiction rates. "Our major concern is the increase in the injecting drug use of heroin in Pakistan, which will increase the HIV/AIDS pandemic," Thomas Zeindl-Cronin, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) told IRIN in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on 25 February. He added that some 500,000 heroin addicts in the country were increasingly turning to injecting drug use, which was of huge concern.
TAJIKISTAN: Severe weather leads to avalanches
Heavy winter rains and snowfall over the past week in Tajikistan have blocked roads in many parts of the country, leading to avalanches that have left at least six people dead. "It's an unfortunate fact of Tajikistan's geography that it's hit by avalanches, mud and landslides that cause damage to property and life," Paul Handley, Humanitarian Affairs Officer with the UN Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told IRIN from the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, on 25 February. This mountainous nation of six and a half million is prone to natural disasters with landslides, mud-slides, flash floods, earthquakes and avalanches a common occurrence.
IRAN: Afghan repatriation nears 400,000 mark
The number of Afghans who have returned to their homeland from Iran is approaching the 400,000 mark, says the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). "We're very close to the 400,000 target," the agency's spokeswoman, Laura O'Mahony, told IRIN from the Iranian capital, Tehran, on 26 February. "We could well hit that figure next week." According to UNHCR figures for Tuesday, 395,752 Afghans had voluntarily gone home since the joint programme with Tehran began on 9 April 2002. Of this number, 265,212 refugees - almost 38,000 families - had received assistance from the refugee agency, while another 130,540 had returned home spontaneously - without assistance.
KAZAKHSTAN: NGOs oppose proposed nuclear plant
In Kazakhstan on Wednesday, a number of local NGOs voiced their opposition to plans to build a nuclear power plant in the central Karaganda region of the country, noting that such a decision should only be reached through a national referendum. In a joint statement issued 27 February by the group in the commercial capital, Almaty, Russia and Kazakhstan had reached an agreement on the start of the facility's construction to be located at Lake Balkhash - despite the fact that current electricity resources were already sufficient. "Already existing power plants, with maximum production and a sensible conservation policy, are capable of meeting the country's electricity needs in the near future," the statement, as reported by by BBC Monitoring, read. The nuclear issue is sensitive in this Central asian republic. Kazakhstan suffers from massive health and enironmental problems - the legacy of decades of Soviet nuclear weapons testing.
TURKMENISTAN: New law strips offenders of property
The government announced on 27 February that the state would be confiscating property belonging to so-called "traitors of the motherland" and turning it over to Turkmen families. The order, issued by Turkmen President Saparmyrat Niyazov and signed by Ashgabat Mayor Amangeldi Redzhepov, was designed to strip alleged traitors of apartments, homes and cottages constructed "to the detriment of the motherland, the people and the state", AP reported. The move follows a spate of new measures undertaken in the reclusive energy-rich state to quash opposition following an alleged assassination attempt on the president in November. According to a report by the Voice of America on Friday, the Vienna-based International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights said it was alarmed by new laws against high treason, which it described as reminiscent of the Stalinist era of the 1930s.
MARCH
AFGHANISTAN: Bomb explosion next to WFP compound
The World Food Programme (WFP), reported a bomb explosion next to its compound in the eastern city of Jalalabad on 5 March. "The explosion took place at 12:15 [PM] on one of the walls of the WFP compound and fortunately no one injured or killed," Marya Reha, an assistant public information officer for WFP, told IRIN in the capital Kabul. According to the United Nations Special Mission for Afghanistan (UNAMA), following the incidence, a second explosion took place at approximately 2 pm in front of the city's municipal electric office in the city centre.
AFGHANISTAN: Key road in the east reopens
A key road in the volatile eastern region of Afghanistan that was blocked for five days by gunmen loyal to a warlord has reopened following successful negotiations, government officials told IRIN on 4 March. "The road is open since Monday morning and people can move freely," Hakim Taniwal, the governor of eastern Khowst Province told IRIN from Khowst town. "We are happy that the issue was resolved through negotiations rather than force."
TAJIKISTAN: Aid agencies hail health reforms
Aid agencies in Tajikistan have hailed new health reforms in the country with the start of a training programme aimed at improving services, which deteriorated rapidly after independence from the former Soviet Union more than a decade ago. "These reforms are extremely important and if they work successfully they will produce more efficient, better quality health services, and empower the population to take greater responsibility for their health," Ed Harris, the country director for ZdravPlus, a foundation working on health-care reform, told IRIN from the capital, Dushanbe, on 5 March. ZdravPlus has recently started training specialist doctors to become general practitioners able to offer a wider range of health services.
TAJIKISTAN: Landslide destroys village
A landslide in the southern Khatlon Province last week devastated more than half the houses in a village, forcing people to take shelter in a local school. "It's a very major slide, but fortunately it was quite slow moving, meaning that people managed to escape," Paul Handley, a humanitarian affairs officer with the UN Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told IRIN from the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, on 7 March. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies reported on 1 March that the hillside above the village of Ghorvodor began to slide into the locality on 26 February, and completely destroyed 11 houses and damaged another 22. Although no deaths and casualties were reported, numerous heads of livestock were reportedly lost.
KAZAKHSTAN: 1 in 3 without access to clean water
Kazakh television reported on Monday that around one in three people in the republic still do not have access to clean water. "In all, 30 percent of Kazakhstan's population drink water from water supply sources that do not meet the standard," the state's chief public health officer, Deputy Health Minister Anatoliy Belonog, was quoted as saying on 7 March. According to Belonog, some work was done last year towards improving the potable water supply system. A total of 128 water supply facilities were restored, artesian wells were drilled in 52 settlements, and water pipelines were built in 15 settlements. However, people in 360 settlements were still having to drink water from open reservoirs, the TV said.
AFGHANISTAN: ISAF comes under bomb attack
The International Security Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (ISAF) has confirmed that a local interpreter had been killed and a Dutch soldier injured following an explosion on the outskirts of the Afghan capital, Kabul, on 14 March. "It was a normal patrol in Bagram District, with several ISAF vehicles, when the explosion happened," a spokesman for the UN mandated multinational peacekeeping force, Lt-Col Thomas Loebbering, told IRIN in Kabul, adding that it had been an improvised explosive device, planted on the edge of the road and detonated remotely when the ISAF vehicle passed. Loebbering noted that despite expert medical attention, the interpreter had died of his injuries, while the Dutch soldier had sustained light wounds.
PAKISTAN: Repatriations of Afghan refugees resumes
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) resumed the voluntary repatriation of Afghans last week following a one-month suspension in February due to staff training. The refugee agency is concentrating on an estimated 1.5 million Afghan refugees living in some 200 camps across Pakistan for repatriation - gradually extending that effort to other parts of the country. "The repatriation that started is focused on the camps because last year most of the returns came from cities," agency spokesman, Jack Redden told IRIN in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad on 12 March. "It's a phased introduction of repatriation, which will include all of the camps and the major cities where Afghan refugees live.
IRAN: Information campaign vital for Afghan returnees
With the number of Afghan returnees from Iran expected to approach half a million this year under the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' (UNHCR) voluntary repatriation programme, aid workers and Afghans themselves say the need for accurate information about the situation in their homeland is vital. "I want to go back to help rebuild my country, but I need to know what to expect when I get there as my family and I have been living away from home for so long," Afghan refugee, Ahmadullah Rehman told IRIN in the heart of the Iranian capital, Tehran, on 18 March.
PAKISTAN: New refugee agreement honours principle of voluntary repatriation
The governments of Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Monday signed a tripartite agreement facilitating the return home of hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees from Pakistan in three years. "This agreement provides a framework for the final resolution of the 23-year-old question of Afghan refugees in Pakistan," a spokesman for UNHCR, Jack Redden, told IRIN in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad on 17 March. "If this agreement is carried through we will be approaching the final solution of this issue as most of the refugees would have gone back," he said.
UZBEKISTAN: US $10 million boost in the war against drugs
In Central Asia this week Tashkent received a boost to its fight against drugs with an announcement that Washington would disburse over US $10 million to Uzbek authorities towards the eradication of drug trafficking. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Soros-Kazakhstan Foundation, the Open Society Institute in Uzbekistan and the Open Society Institute in Tajikistan will implement the anti-drug programme. The programme focuses on a healthy lifestyle and developing state policy for preventing drug-abuse.
CENTRAL ASIA: Tajik president calls for UN recognition for Aral Sea
Tajik President Emomali Rahmonov has called for granting the International Aral Sea Rescue Fund the status of a UN institution, Asia-Plus reported on 18 March. Rahmonov, who was speaking at the World Water Forum in the Japanese city of Kyoto, drew the attention of the participants to environmental problems in Central Asia. "He said that once the fund had the status of a UN institution it would help effectively solve the Aral problem," the agency said. Rahmonov is the chairman of the International Aral Sea Rescue Fund, which aims to solve the problem of the shrinking Aral Sea, bordering Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
AFGHANISTAN: Swiss ICRC delegate murdered
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on 28 March, condemned the killing of one its field delegates in the southern Afghan province of Oruzgan, temporarily freezing all field movements in the country. The murder, the first killing of an international ICRC staff member in the country since 1990, is a grim reminder of the problems facing aid workers on the ground. "This was a brutal and unacceptable act," an ICRC spokeswoman, Annick Bouvier, told IRIN from Geneva. "We are shocked over what has happened."
AFGHANISTAN: Heavy floods affect 2,000 people in the north
The effects of heavy rains on 23 March have caused serious flooding in northern Afghanistan, affecting thousands of people and destroying hundreds of homes.
"Eleven people have been killed and over 2,000 people were affected," Manoel de Almeida el Silva, a spokesman for the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) told IRIN in the capital Kabul on Thursday. The flood happened on Sunday in Konduz province, damaging 474 houses, while completely destroying 168. The flood seriously impacted Khanabad district, but also affected the surrounding districts of Chahar Darreh, Dasht-e Archi and Aliabad.
PAKISTAN: Closure of refugee village creates tough choices
Painda Muhammad, a 60-year-old Afghan refugee, faces one of the toughest choices of his life. Kacha Garhi, where he lives, one of Pakistan's oldest refugee camps in the northwestern city of Peshawar, will soon be closing. "I don't want to leave my home here. It's beyond my means to establish another house elsewhere," he told IRIN on 28 March. But Muhammad has few choices. He can either go back to his beleaguered country and to his land in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar, receiving some assistance from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), or move to a few newly established makeshift camps in Pakistan's Tribal Areas bordering Afghanistan, and live there on food aid.
KAZAKHSTAN: Looming environmental disaster
Ecologists warned on 28 March of what they called a looming environmental catastrophe as an underground lake of kerosene seeped toward the Irtysh River, which runs through Siberia and feeds into the mighty Ob. The lake was formed in the mid-1970s from a leak in a fuel station at a military air base near Semipalatinsk, now known as Semey, a town in eastern Kazakhstan where the Soviet Union had its largest testing ground for nuclear weapons. The lake contains approximately 6,400 mt of kerosene and covers some 400,000 square metres according to environmental experts. Two years ago, a private company won a state tender to start draining the kerosene, but it pumped out just 30 metric tons (33 tons). Since a new tax code was passed in 2002, giving local governments responsibility for financing all environmental clean-up, the Semey administration has been unable to come up with funds to continue removing the kerosene.
APRIL
AFGHANISTAN: Yet again NGOs cite serious security concerns
Following the murder of an International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delegate in the southern province of Kandahar on 3 April, some international aid agencies have suspended work in southern provinces. "The NGOs suspended their movements in all provinces outside Kandahar for 72 hours right after the killing of the ICRC staff member," Diane Johnson, a programme director for Mercy Corps in southern Afghanistan, told IRIN in the Afghan capital, Kabul, noting that on Sunday the suspension had been extended for another 72 hours as the situation was still fragile.
PAKISTAN: People living with HIV/AIDS thrown out of hospital, says NGO
An NGO working with people living with HIV/AIDS in Pakistan has expressed outrage after three HIV positive patients were allegedly thrown out of a hospital in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) due to discrimination. "These patients were thrown out because of discrimination and ignorance of the disease," chief executive of the AWARD NGO, Maimoona Masood Khan told IRIN from Peshawar, the provincial capital of the NWFP on 1 April.
TAJIKISTAN: Increasing donor support for TB control
With enhanced political stability in Tajikistan resulting from the ongoing successful peace process, donors and aid agencies are stepping up efforts to contain tuberculosis (TB), which continues to figure as a major public health emergency there. "Now there is increased attention to TB in the whole region, and here in Tajikistan," Tom Mohr, the programme manager for the international NGO Project Hope told IRIN from the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, on 3 April.
TAJIKISTAN: ECHO increases aid to disaster prone regions
Communities vulnerable to natural disasters in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan will benefit from a new 3 million euros [US $3.2 million) Disaster Preparedness Action Plan launched by the European Commission and managed through its Humanitarian Office (ECHO). "In disaster-prone countries such as Tajikistan, this type of initiative will help save lives," ECHO correspondent for Central Asia, Cecile Pichon, told IRIN from the Tajik capital, Dushanbe on 3 April.
UZBEKISTAN: MSF launch Aral Sea TB project
During a news conference on 2 April, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said it was going to launch a pilot project in 2003 to treat multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in the Karakalpakistan region of northern Uzbekistan south of the Aral Sea, the Uzland news website reported. Karakalpakistan is among the world's regions with the highest level of MDR-TB. However it appears that 13 per cent of patients there have never been given treatment for TB. Average life expectancy for men in the Aral Sea region is just 40 years. Almost all pregnant women in the region are suffering from anaemia. A wide range of diseases is common. Most are the result of the environmental crisis caused by the desertification of the Aral Sea and the excessive use of fertilisers during the Soviet era, when the soil was contaminated by fertiliser to the point at which it contained eight times the level authorised by international standards.
AFGHANISTAN: Floods in the west kill at least two
People are continuing to suffer as a result of heavy floods which struck last week in Gulran and Koshk districts of the western province of Herat, while no aid agency or government body has so far responded. "The situation is very bad. Seventy-two families have lost their houses and are living in shops or in tents," Sayed Zabiullah, of the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR) told IRIN from Herat city on 9 April. "The floods killed one person and injured two," Zabuillah said, adding that many head of livestock had also died. The floods lasted four days.
AFGHANISTAN: UN lifts suspension of movements in the south
Following a six-day suspension due to deteriorating security, the United Nations announced on Sunday 6 April a resumption of movement in the southern provinces of Afghanistan. An earlier suspension of movement followed the murder of an International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delegate in the southern province of Oruzgan on 27 March. "We will resume movements in the region [all southern provinces] on Monday," Manoel de Almeida e Silva, a UN spokesman in Afghanistan, told IRIN in the Afghan capital, Kabul. According to the spokesman, several hundred troops, mostly from the new Afghan national army, along with US-led coalition forces, have been deployed in and around the areas of high risk to curb elements threatening security in those areas.
AFGHANISTAN: Heavy fighting in the northwest leaves 13 dead, curtails aid
United Nations and international aid agencies were forced to close their offices when severe fighting between two rival groups in Meymaneh, the capital of the northwestern province of Faryab, erupted on 8 April. "The fighting began between Jamiat [Jamiat-i Islami or Islamic Society led by Burhanuddin Rabbani] and Jonbesh [Jonbesh-e Melli-ye Eslami or National Islamic Movement led by Abdul Rashid Dostam] following the killing of a high-ranking Jamiat commander in the city," Manoel de Almeida e Silva, a spokesman of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), told IRIN in the capital, Kabul, noting that at least 13 people, including two civilians, had been killed and 17 injured in the skirmishes.
AFGHANISTAN: First-ever human development report
After a decade of lack of reliable information, Afghanistan is taking the first steps to prepare its first-ever National Human Development Report (NHDR). Currently, very little relevant and reliable information exists for policy makers and stakeholders. "Consultation will be meaningless unless stakeholders are equipped with information," Hanif Atmar, the Afghan minister of rural rehabilitation and development, told IRIN in the capital, Kabul, on 8 April. The Afghan government and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on Saturday signed a US $200,000 project agreement to produce an NHDR through the Afghan rural rehabilitation and development ministry.
TAJIKISTAN: WFP increases aid for recovery
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has increased its assistance to Tajikistan by 40 percent under its Protected Relief and Recovery Operation (PRRO), marking a transition from humanitarian relief to recovery and development in the country, IRIN was told on 9 April. "Tajikistan is a low-income and food-deficit country needing food assistance," the WFP country director, Ardag Meghdessian, told IRIN from the Tajik capital, Dushanbe. "The shift of emphasis from relief to recovery indeed indicates increased stability in the country, as well as an improvement of the overall humanitarian situation," he said, adding that the devastating two-year drought in 2000 and 2001 was over.
TAJIKISTAN: EC pledges 10 million euros worth of humanitarian assistance
The EC on 7 April approved a 10 million euro aid package for humanitarian activities in Tajikistan, the Asia-Plus news agency reported. The funds will be earmarked for providing food and medical aid, carrying out sanitary work, as well as implementing projects on water supply in Tajikistan, the mission of the EC's Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO) in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, announced.
AFGHANISTAN: Insecurity threatening return programme, says UNHCR
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has said that deteriorating security in parts of Afghanistan is hampering its return programmes for refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). "Repatriation has slowed down significantly since last year. But last year there was a great deal of exuberance. This year people are looking at the economic and security situation, " a UNHCR spokesman, Peter Kessler, told IRIN from the Jordanian capital, Amman on 14 April.
AFGHANISTAN: Powerful explosion on Kabul-Jalalabad road
Authorities in Kabul reported a large explosion east of the capital on 13 April. The blast occurred late on Sunday night two and half km from the headquarters of International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Yaka Tut District on the Kabul-Jalabad highway, about five km out of Kabul. "It was a mine explosion mixed with some more explosives placed on the side of the road," Gen Abdul Rauf Taj, the chief of ninth precinct local police, told IRIN, noting that three men from a government security post were injured by fragments of flying glass, though there were no deaths or other injuries.
AFGHANISTAN: Relief efforts for quake-hit villages continue
Efforts to provide relief to those affected by a moderate earthquake in the northeastern province of Takhar last week continued on Monday 14 April, with aid agencies struggling to access two remote villages. "Due to problems of access and communications, we don't have exact details of how many homes were destroyed," David Singh, a spokesman for the United Nations Assistance Mission for Afghanistan (UNAMA) told IRIN in the Afghan capital, Kabul. "By Wednesday or Thursday, we will be able to do an assessment of the damages and needs."
PAKISTAN: Repatriation of Afghan refugees living in urban areas begins
Monday 14 April saw the first repatriation of Afghan refugees who had been living in urban areas of Pakistan. Assisted by the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), some 100 families from the country's capital, Islamabad, and the southwestern city of Quetta returned. "With the ongoing returns from camps, we are also emphasising urban repatriation," a UNHCR spokesman, Barbur Baloch, told IRIN on Tuesday from Quetta. Some 89 families, numbering 438 individuals, left Quetta for home, while another nine families left Islamabad.
TAJIKISTAN: Heavy rains threaten food security
Heavy rains have threatened food security in parts of Tajikistan, as the banks of a river burst in an area near the capital, Dushanbe. The flood comes within days after heavy rains killed a child in the southeast of the country over the weekend. "Mud could be seen flowing down one of the main roads, which had to be closed," Paul Handley, a humanitarian affairs officer for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Tajikistan, told IRIN from Dushanbe on 17 April. "Although there is no food-security emergency, people will have needs."
TURKMENISTAN: Rights groups welcome UN human rights resolution
Rights groups have welcomed a UN resolution criticising Turkmenistan's human rights record adopted this week. The reclusive Central Asian state has a poor rights record, and watchdog groups have reported a mounting crackdown following an alleged assassination attempt on Turkmen President Saparmyrat Niyazov last November. "We welcome this resolution as it demonstrates increasing international concern," a Central Asia researcher for Amnesty International, Anna Sunder-Plassman, told IRIN from London.
KAZAKHSTAN: Checking for SARS
As Asian countries become increasingly concerned about severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) Kazakhstan is checking a suspected case of the killer pneumonia in the Caspian Sea port town of Aktau, the Central Asian country's emergency situations agency said on 1 April. "The woman, aged 40, became ill after a business trip to Beijing between April 8 and April 15," Kayirzhan Turezhanov, the agency's spokesman, told AFP. It will take 10 days to definitely diagnose whether the patient has contracted SARS. The patient is Kazakhstan's only suspected case of SARS. Doctors in the northern town of Pavlodar gave a clean bill of health to a man earlier suspected of having the illness. The suspected SARS carrier has been isolated in hospital, as have her husband and daughter and the doctor who first treated her.
TAJIKISTAN: Heavy rain triggers mudslides
A child was killed and a dozen homes destroyed in Tajikistan as heavy rains triggered massive mudslides over the weekend, the emergency ministry said on Monday, 18 April. The 12-year-old died on Sunday after being carried several km by the raging floods, which struck the southeast of the Central Asian country, including the capital Dushanbe. Around 200 houses were affected by the mudslides and around 500 domesticated animals were killed, the ministry said, adding that damage could reach US $1 million. Workers with the emergencies ministry worked around the clock in Dushanbe to clean up the mud-covered main roads, as officials warned that the possibility of further flash floods and mudslides remained high.
AFGHANISTAN: Flood victims continue to suffer despite emergency response
Following heavy flooding in the Shamali region in the northern province of Parvan on 18 April, the Afghan government and aid community are still trying to cope with the consequences, with over 1,000 families still under threat if further heavy rains occur. The United Nations reported that 25 affected families had been taken to a camp set up by Afghan government five km from Bagram Air Base on the road to the capital, Kabul. "There are 1,500 flood-prone families living in 30 villages who could end up in this camp if there is further flooding," David Singh, a media relations officer of UN Assistance Mission for Afghanistan (UNAMA), told IRIN in Kabul, noting that these families had stayed in the flooded area on higher ground, probably in the open, but with access to health facilities and water.
KYRGYZSTAN: Landslide kills up to 38
Relief teams were still on the scene on 21 April after a landslide ripped through a small village in mountainous southwestern Kyrgyzstan over the weekend. "At the moment, 38 people are missing and most likely are dead," Andrei Khanzhin, the liaison officer for the United Nations in southern Kyrgyzstan, told IRIN from the western city of Osh, noting that the rescuers had already recovered five bodies. On Sunday afternoon, the landslide, triggered by heavy rains and melting snow, slammed into Karatarik, a village of between 200 and 300 people in Uzgen District, about 100 km east of Osh. "The weather has been quite bad for the past four or five days," Khanzhin said.
AFGHANISTAN: Attack in the east prompts suspension of UN mine clearance
Following an armed attack on a mine-clearance survey team from the Mine Clearance Planning Agency (MCPA) on the Jalalabad-Kabul road, the United Nations Mine Action Campaign for Afghanistan has suspended all its activities in the east. "The UN mine clearance activities is suspended on this road until Saturday," David Singh, a media officer of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, told IRIN in Kabul, adding that all UN movements had also been suspended in the area for 48 hours after the incident. UNAMA said the attack happened on Tuesday 22 March while the mine-clearance survey staff members were carrying out their duties, driving a white Land Cruiser marked MCPA.
