Homeless returnees face bitter winter

Shafiqah had to spend Wednesday night out on the hillside with her seven children as recent rainfall had washed away the homeless returnee's tent in the Jangalak mountain area of the capital, Kabul. "It is very hard to pass the cold night out here with hungry stomachs," the mother of seven who had returned from neighboring Pakistan told IRIN. Shafiqah said hers was one of hundreds of homeless families squatting in the 450-tent colony with no employment and only minimal assistance from government or the international aid community. "Food and shelter are the direst needs here," she said. Homeless returnees told IRIN that the chilling cold of Kabul was exacerbating their vulnerability. "We are the least skilled people, and since winter has already started, construction work and other wage labour chances are considerably decreasing," said Faqir Mohammad, the representative of Jangalak camp. Mohammad said they had not received any regular assistance from either government or aid organisations except some winter items just recently. "What can we do with charcoal if we are lying on the damp ground and have no food to eat?" he said, adding that the families had previously lived in a school building, which they had had to evacuate and camp on this hillside when the educational year started in March. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) told IRIN it had undertaken programmes to help these homeless families. "What we decided to do is to look into different reasons why they are there. We agreed with the Afghan government, especially during winter, to help these people get through the winter," Maki Shinohara, a UNHCR spokeswoman, told IRIN. Shinohara said many of these vulnerable people in the camps were not only returnees, but also local poor families. "We do hope that as the situation improves in the county and more aid comes in, these people will go back to their original homes," she added. "About 1,000 families squatting in nine public buildings and four tent sites received blankets, soap, plastic sheeting, cooker heaters and charcoal to prepare for the winter," said Shinohara, adding that her agency had already begun winter deliveries, "UNHCR is preparing to deliver winter items to over 47,000 returnees or displaced Afghans who may be in need this season," she added. Despite winter relief and assistances, the returnees said many people, mostly children, had already caught serious pneumonia and colds as they lived on the wet floors of the tents or ruined buildings. "There are too many big holes in our room and it is difficult to keep out the cold weather. Every winter is a disaster that we have to pass with the hope that it will get better next year," Shakilah, another homeless returnee, told IRIN. The mother of two, who subsists in a ruined building in Kabul, said her children had contracted colds that would probably stay with them all winter. "But I don't even have money to pay a doctor," the illiterate widow who came from neighboring Pakistan eight months ago said. "In Peshawar [northwestern Pakistan], there were at least factories to work in, but here there are no opportunities of income for illiterate women like me," she said. UNHCR said that in order to reduce the short-term shelter problem, the rehabilitation of nine public buildings was going on in Kabul and, following government approval, empty public buildings would be rehabilitated to house the estimated 400 families currently facing the winter under canvas.