Refugee flow continues

About 200 Afghans crossed into southwestern Pakistan in the first few hours of Tuesday morning, Peter Kessler, the spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, told IRIN. "There is a continuous flow of refugees," he said.

Kessler said the families had been taken to what is known as the "staging site" or temporary site of Killi Faizo, adjacent to the border crossing at Chaman, where some 1,300 people are already waiting, and of this number about half are vulnerable children. "We would like to move these people to the camps as soon as possible," he added.

On Monday, a UNHCR spokesman, Ron Redmond, told reporters that plans were being made to start using some 15 camps in Pakistan, now being developed to accommodate 150,000 people to cope with the influx of Afghan refugees fleeing the US-led air strikes. Pakistan has closed its border with Afghanistan in fear of a major influx of refugees, and was only allowing those with documents to cross.

However, in recent days the authorities said they would allow women, children, the elderly and wounded to cross. It had then been pointed out to the authorities that young men at risk of conscripted to fight for the Taliban should also be allowed in, Redmond noted.

He went on to say that United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers, who arrived in Pakistan over the weekend, had already visited the Chaman border, and was encouraging the Pakistani government to be more flexible on border crossings due to the large numbers of people waiting there. Redmond said Lubbers would be discussing this issue, among others, with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and his ministers on Tuesday.

The UN earlier predicted that 1.5 million refugees could enter Pakistan in a worst-case scenario. Redmond said about 80,000 could already have crossed the border. In the case of Afghans crossing into Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, they are said to be using routes which are not monitored, and their numbers are suspected to be much smaller.

Although the Pakistani authorities have agreed for temporary camps to be set up in border areas on Pakistani territory, some experts in Islamabad believe that this move could adversely affect the country's economy and the living conditions of the rest of the population. "International support for Afghan refugees is insufficent. I believe that the facilities for them are not adequate, and this is just going to have a negative effect on Pakistan," an expert on Afghanistan, Rasul Bakhsh Rais, told IRIN.

He added that refugee camps should be set up inside Afghanistan. "The fighting is concentrated in certain areas, so there are still safe places inside Afghanistan for them to live." Rais said while it was important for Afghans to feel safe, they should not be moved out of their environment, as they were likely to remain in Pakistan and create an extra burden for a country already home to more than 2 million Afghan refugees.

However, the UN has reiterated that these refugees are asylum seekers and civilians fleeing the war, seeking refuge and safety in neighbouring countries.

"In practical terms, persons fleeing war and war-related conditions, such as civil war and ethnic and religious violence, and whose state is unwilling or unable to protect them, are in need of international protection and should be considered refugees. Refusing such people asylum is the same as 'forcible return', and violates international law," the spokeswoman for the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Afghanistan, Stephanie Bunker, said.