Growing concern over Spin Buldak

Aid workers expressed concern on Thursday over the situation in and around the border town of Spin Buldak in southern Afghanistan, home to some 60,000 displaced Afghans. The news follows the closure of the Chaman border crossing to both refugees and humanitarian aid convoys by the Pakistani government earlier this week. "The Taliban government has totally evacuated this area, leaving tribal factions to oversee the situation," the southern regional head of the UK-based NGO, Islamic Relief, Asadullah Mutawakkil, told IRIN. "Right now, things are calm, but security remains a concern.

Our team witnessed the looting of four of the warehouses containing both food and non-food items by the people there, and some were walking around with machine guns," he said. "It's very cold, dusty and harsh, and these people don't have any facilities," Lindsey Davies, the spokeswoman of the World Food Programme (WFP) in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, told IRIN. "We want to get as much food to them as possible, but at this point our hands are tied." For the past 18 days, WFP had been unable to travel between the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta and the Taliban southeastern stronghold of Kandahar, but had been able to reach Spin Buldak, she said. "Now that is closed for humanitarian convoys," Davies said, adding that the situation was extremely tense.

The Quetta corridor accounts for about 8 percent of WFP's total cross-border deliveries to Afghanistan. As a result, WFP has been unable to deliver or distribute food to Kandahar city or its environs. The food agency is concerned about 238,000 people it was assisting until recently and the many more living in this area who have since become vulnerable, but cannot be reached. The agency has enough food in its warehouse in Spin Buldak to provide 16,800 people with food over a one month period, with distribution set to begin later this week, pending improved security in the area.

Faisal Gilani, country liaison officer for Islamic Relief in Afghanistan, told IRIN his organisation was going to distribute WFP items on Wednesday, but failed to do so due to security concerns. He added that the distribution of 263 mt of wheat flour, oil and pulses from the food agency to about 3,000 families for a two-month period would hopefully begin on Sunday. Describing the situation as "confused", Fatoumata Kaba, a spokeswoman for the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told IRIN that the situation could deteriorate, depending on how long these people, most of whom were from Kandahar and southern Afghanistan, had to live under such bad conditions. "There is an acute shortage of water, and assistance there is limited," she said, adding that those people who managed to cross into Pakistan were in particularly poor condition.

According to UNHCR, people travelling into Pakistan at the Chaman border crossing also described the situation as tense. Refugees reported that local shops in Spin Buldak had closed on Wednesday, and it was unclear who was in control. UNHCR said it was concerned about several tented encampments in the area holding tens of thousands of people, adding that some internally displaced people were reportedly headed for Chaman.