Afghans asked to leave tribal North Waziristan

Afghan refugees living in Pakistan's North Waziristan agency's western tribal belt bordering Afghanistan have been asked to leave the area in six weeks, an official from the Afghan refugee directorate told IRIN from the agency's capital, Miranshah, on Tuesday. For last two years, Pakistani security forces have been busy in a full-scale offensive against militants in the western belt of the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA). "By 7 September, all Afghans living in urban and rural clusters have to leave the North Waziristan agency. The Afghan population living in the area has been informed about the decision through public announcements at local radio and through drum beating at other prominent places like markets," Akbar Ali Jan Wazir, agency administrator for Afghan refugees said from Miranshah, some 190 miles southwest of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. Of the 58,000 Afghans in the tribal North Waziristan agency, some 50,000 Afghans have already repatriated over the last six weeks on their own, as well as through the assistance from the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), according to the state-run body dealing with Afghan refugees in North Waziristan. According to UNHCR, more than 30,000 Afghans, mostly hailing from refugee camps, have been assisted by the agency, under their voluntary repatriation programme. But the remaining 900 Afghan families living in urban and rural clusters of North Waziristan are more established than those of the camp population. "They run businesses here, most of them own shops in markets, that's why they have been given a deadline of six weeks from now to wind up their businesses and leave the area," Wazir explained. Aside from repatriating to Afghanistan, the Afghans can avail the option of relocating to the Gandi Khan Khel refugee camp, located in the neighbouring district of Bannu in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and to date, some 93 Afghan families from the Qutubkhel refugee camp have shifted to Gandi Khan Khel. "However, most of the Afghans have preferred to move back to Afghanistan," Wazir added. Meanwhile, the humanitarian situation in the tribal belt is worsening as military operations against suspected al-Qaeda elements continue, according to local journalists. According to one BBC report last year, the co-ordinated effort is largely aimed at capturing top al-Qaeda leaders Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri. The men, and many of their close associates, are widely believed to be hiding in and perhaps operating out of the area. Since the start of operation, the military authorities have firmly maintained that a large number of Uzbek, Chechen and Arab militants were in the area, the report said, a claim local tribesmen vehemently deny. "17 persons killed by Pakistani security forces in Miranshah two days ago include ten children under the age of ten with six boys and four girls. Can such young people - irrespective of getting into their nationality debate - be counted as militants?" Dilawar Khan, a local journalist asked from Wana, tribal capital of the adjacent South Waziristan agency, the scene of last year's offensive. But according to Pakistani military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan on Monday, the 17 militants gunned down near the Afghan border were all from Kazakhstan and included women and teenage youths. However, the identity of those killed has been reported by local media as Uzbek origin, which may hail from Afghanistan. "The truck which came under the indiscriminate fire of the army is the type usually hired by refugees and was having household items. The burnt stuff is still lying at the scene," Khan added.