Camp for displaced people to be set up in Baghlan

Plans to build a camp for displaced families in the northern Afghan province of Baghlan are under way. “We have identified a site which can accommodate at least 5,000 families”, Sebastian Trives, the Afghanistan coordinator for ACTED, a French NGO, told IRIN on Monday.

There are at least 150,000 displaced people across the northern region. An estimated 11,000 families are in Baghlan, most of whom fled neighbouring areas steeped in conflict, according to WFP. Some crossed the front line between the northern Badakhshan and Takhar provinces, where the ruling Taliban are fighting the opposition Northern Alliance.

Last week, the UN announced it would consider setting up camps in northern Afghanistan, and was working with international aid agencies to implement the plans. Trives said ACTED had been asked to take the lead role in setting up a camp in Baghlan. The NGO started relief work in Baghlan two months ago, and is one of several working in the province.

The move to set up camps had been discouraged in the past, because aid agencies preferred to channel resources to help Afghans stay as close to their places of origin as possible. However, massive displacement due to the ongoing drought and civil war prompted the UN and international aid agencies to establish camps so that the most vulnerable could be targeted.

Many of the displaced have settled in makeshift sites, and are in desperate need of food and water. Aid workers say it is unclear when the displaced will return home, if at all, although it is unlikely they will do so for so long as the conflict persists.

Trives said the Baghlan camp would be built at Dasht-i Khoja Alwom, 12 km from the provincial capital of Pol-e Khomri. He explained that although there were some abandoned houses on the new site, plans included supplying displaced families with materials so they could build their own shelters in return for food supplied by WFP. “Two hundred kilos of wheat will be given for each shelter built,” he said. He added that access to water at the site was good, and that wells would also be dug.

However, the UN has stressed that not all the displaced will be able to move, due to the lack of space and resources. ACTED is carrying out a survey to identify the most vulnerable in Baghlan. “We can’t move everyone, so we must prioritise,” he said.

Trives said it would be some time before the displaced could move to the site, although he was optimistic that it would be before the cold weather set in. “It is important that these people have proper shelter before the winter,” he added.