"Waiting area" refugees subjected to negative policies, says MSF

Afghan refugees housed in "waiting area" camps set up just inside Pakistani territory along the border with Afghanistan for people who had fled to escape the US-led coalition's campaign against the Taliban in 2001, were subjected to a deliberate policy on the part of the Pakistani and Afghan authorities to limit assistance, a Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) official said on Wednesday. "The decision of the Pakistani authorities to seal the border to new arrivals of refugees on 21 February 2002 left around 25,000 people stranded in Kili Faizo, just inside Pakistan, without national or international assistance. That area became known as the 'waiting area'. For 15 months these people were not given the chance to be registered or transferred to the official camps," Hernan del Valle, a humanitarian affairs officer for MSF's country management team, told IRIN from the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. In May 2003, the Pakistani and Afghan governments and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) jointly agreed to close the waiting area by the end of July. This decision was reached after the area was defined as unsafe due to security concerns and living conditions. "The waiting area was an insecure area right on the border. There was no access to water; we had to truck it in. There was fighting near Spin Buldak, bodies were dumped in the camp," Jack Redden, a UNHCR spokesman, told IRIN in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. "Services were limited - the waiting area was never a refugee camp as such. It was improvised." However, according to an MSF press statement issued earlier this week, the refugees were put under "enormous pressure" to move. It said the agenda and needs of different players had turned the refugees into a "problem" that had to be removed, even against their will. Following the first tripartite commission meeting in May, 10,757 people were sent to Zharey Dasht, located 25 km from Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, and a further 7,801 to Muhammad Khel camp situated inside Pakistan. "Ironically, almost a year and a half after their arrival, when people finally had developed their survival strategies and adapted to the place, they were informed that they had to leave the area without delay," del Valle said. "Besides providing health care, nutritional support in the form of feeding programmes, chlorination of water, and measles immunisation, MSF advocated consistently for their admission as refugees in Pakistan, and for an immediate improvement on the levels of assistance by other agencies, something that happened only over time," he added. "We have an obligation to provide protection. This was a desolate area. We could not provide tents as the Pakistani authorities didn't want it to become permanent, and frankly neither did we," Redden, for his part, observed. In June, Amnesty International (AI) voiced its concerns about the security situation in Afghanistan, suggesting that the country did not represent an environment conducive to returnees prevailed upon to go home on a voluntary basis. MSF is currently providing health care in two camps in Chaman, as well as camps in Spin Buldak and Zharey Dasht. "MSF has a commitment to assist those populations for as long as it is necessary," del Valle stressed, adding that in the context of repatriation, MSF upheld the right of refugees to voluntary repatriation, and had urged governments and UNHCR not to press people to return to an unsustainable situation. "In terms of relocations, we maintain that any relocation plan should ensure dignified conditions for the already vulnerable refugee populations. We believe that refugees should be fully involved from the beginning of the decision-making process, and their voices should be heard. They should be given access to complete and accurate information and their decisions should be free from pull-and-push factors that undermine their ability to make their own choices," del Valle stressed. Redden said another round of talks between the Pakistani and Afghan governments and UNHCR had been scheduled for this week. "The future of camps will be discussed this week and what can be done to consolidate them," he said. Meanwhile, Pakistani officials were unavailable for comment. According to UNHCR, 2.2 million Afghan refugees, with UN assistance, had returned to their homeland from Pakistan and Iran, the two largest host countries, since the voluntary repatriation effort began in March 2002, including some 400,000 this year alone.