Afghan refugees health deteriorating

The health of refugees at a temporary staging camp in southwestern Pakistan and at a camp on Afghanistan's southern border is rapidly deteriorating, with reports of the presence there of severely sick and malnourished people, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Wednesday.

"Conditions at these camps are not satisfactory," the UNHCR spokesman in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, Peter Kessler, told IRIN. He said more people were arriving by the day at the Killi Faizo staging camp and that UNHCR was doing its best to cater for them by trying to improve sanitation.

About 384 families were said to be at the site, waiting to be moved to better-equipped camps, Kessler said. "We are waiting for the Pakistani government to give us the go-ahead in moving the Afghans," he added. UNHCR had reached an agreement with the Pakistani authorities to develop refugee camps in border areas, and said about 15 of some 30 sites would be put into use soon.

Medecins sans frontieres had set up a clinic at Killi Faizo to deal with 120 people per day suffering from basic illnesses such as respiratory problems and diarrhoea, Kessler said. There had already been one suspected case of polio, and those with war wounds were being taken to hospitals in Quetta, he added.

The numbers of Afghans arriving were increasing daily, with an additional 73 arriving at Killi Faizo on Thursday, Kessler said. However, on Wednesday, the Pakistani authorities had suspended further registration at the site, which was designed to take a maximum of 325 families and had already exceeded its capacity.

By late afternoon, no new arrivals had been admitted, although around 55 people had crossed the border, and were waiting outside the camp. Following negotiations, UNHCR managed to persuade Pakistani officials to accept more refugees.

There are said to be even worse conditions in the Afghan border area of Spin Boldak, where people have reportedly been forced to stay in a Taliban-controlled camp for several days before being allowed across into Pakistan, according to refugees who had arrived at Killi Faizo. The estimated population at Spin Boldak is 700 families, of whom at least 100 families were reported to be sleeping in the open without any aid at all.

Four of the most severe cases from Spin Boldak were women, who were referred to Quetta hospital in southwestern Pakistan. They included two pregnant women who were bleeding, one with suspected tuberculosis and another with a fractured arm, which she said was the result of aerial bombardment.

As the US-led air strikes continue, refugees arriving over the past couple of days have said they fled because of the bombing. One 60 year-old man reported that he had lost his entire family when his house was destroyed.

There are also reports of the Taliban actively preventing people from leaving Afghanistan, including those in need of urgent medical attention.

Meanwhile, the security situation continues to deteriorate in southern Afghanistan with the Taliban's seizure of the UNHCR field office in Spin Boldak. There were no UNHCR staff in the office at the time, but the refugee agency has said the seizure was a serious violation of UNHCR premises, which came just hours after a meeting between UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers and the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, at which Lubbers requested the Taliban to stop interfering with UNHCR property and staff, so that operations could continue inside Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has expressed grave concern over the conditions under which the refugees are being kept. "People are starving at the borders," the chairman of the HRCP, Afrasiyab Khattak, told IRIN. "We understand Pakistan's point of view, but it is wrong to keep these people in such conditions and is a violation of human-rights laws," he added.

Khattak urged the UN to persuade the Pakistani authorities to agree to opening the border. HRCP has also reported that some 15,000 Afghans are stuck in a tribal area on the border of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province with Afghanistan. "These people are stuck in Waziristan, and diseases are breaking out. We know people are suffering from malaria. By closing the border, more harm is being caused," he added.