Focus on refugee situation

The situation of refugees in Pakistan remains uncertain after the authorities again halted the pre-registration of newly arrived Afghans in the south of the country due to security concerns, but to the dismay of the office of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Meanwhile, refugees already installed in camps are said to be in increasing danger of harassment from ethnic groups, with reports of Pashtun villagers in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) becoming hostile towards Tajik and Uzbek refugees. The predominantly Pashtun Taliban have long retained support in certain areas of the NWFP, and although UNHCR is doing its best to monitor returnees, there remains concern that some could be going back to unsafe areas. Pre-registration halted UNHCR said on Monday that it was "alarmed" by Islamabad's decision to halt pre-registration of new Afghan refugees crossing the country's southern Chaman border with Afghanistan. "The authorities in Quetta [in the southern province of Baluchistan] said they had received instructions from the interior ministry over the weekend to stop us from registering more refugees, due to the security situation," A UNHCR spokeswoman in Islamabad, Fatoumata Kaba, told IRIN on Tuesday. An estimated 2,000 Afghans were now left outside UNHCR's staging post of Kili Faizo, putting them at risk, she said. "There is a protection problem if these people are left out in the open." Kaba added that while they would try and resolve the issue with the authorities, similar problems with the government had been encountered in the past. "When we first started this operation, the authorities would allow us to register for two or three days. Then we would be stopped for a day or so, but we would manage to restart it," she said. Following the events of 11 September, the government had first refused to take any refugees, saying it was home to nearly three million Afghans already, and could not cope with the extra burden. Later an agreement was reached with UNHCR, which had expected an extra 1.5 million Afghans to cross into Pakistan in a worst-case scenario. To date an estimated 135,000 have entered Pakistan - 75,000 into the NWFP and 50,000 into Baluchistan - over the past two months. However, the number of refugees crossing into the NWFP is said to have dropped from 4,500 to an average of 1,000 per day since Kabul and Jalalabad were taken by opposition Northern Alliance forces. Before this recent development, the refugee agency said registration had picked up pace, and about 800 people were being signed up on average per day. Earlier this week, the authorities also halted registration of men aged between 20 and 40, saying it posed a security risk as there could be large numbers of Afghans, including Taliban members, arriving from the southern province of Kandahar, following the announcement of US troops on the ground there. A government official told IRIN that they were worried about recruitment of men within camps, and a possible movement emerging from that. So far, UNHCR has managed to move a total of 9,500 people to the Roghani camp for new arrivals in Baluchistan, but has expressed concern over the health of children there. "One of our main concerns with these refugee families is the number of malnourished children," Kaba said. She explained that the malnutrition rate was one of the highest seen in a refugee situation. Kaba noted that the children affected by severe malnutrition were aged between one and three. To help counter the problem, a number of supplementary feeding centres had been set up at Roghani, and as soon as refugees arrived they are given a medical check-up. She warned that the forced displacement would impoverish people even more, rendering them "destitute and poor" as a result of them being uprooted. Asked if there had been a greater influx of Afghans from Kandahar following the arrival there of American troops, Kaba said there been no a noticeable increase yet, but that it was expected. Tension in camps With reports of refugees from the Uzbek and Tajik ethnic minorities being harassed in camps by Pashtuns, there have been expressions of been concern from the diplomatic community. "There are reports of harassment of Afghan refugees in Rawalpindi, and in camps," an EU ambassador in Islamabad told IRIN. In the context of earlier reports of Taliban members entering camps for recruitment, the ambassador said it was important to put pressure on Pakistan to remove them. He added that it was also vital to consider what could be done for "invisible refugees". While the border was officially closed, protection should be extended to those who trickled through, he said. "The movement of non-Pashtuns into [the Pakistani] Tribal Areas doesn't strike me as sensible," he added. Echoing this view, Medecins sans frontieres (MSF) said the refugees could be in great danger if placed at the wrong site. The international NGO criticised the camp sites earmarked for new arrivals in the NWFP's Tribal Areas, saying the people there were pro-Taliban. However, UNHCR has said it will only move Pashtun refugees to one of its 15 proposed camps for new refugees in the NWFP. A site at the Bajaur Agency was the first to be opened, and it is in a predominantly Pashtun area, raising fears of refugees being harassed there. "We know this could happen, but we have had no reports of this happening from our people on the ground yet," Kaba said. A member of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) who lives in the Bajaur Agency told IRIN that tensions were running high. "This is a pro-Taliban area, and the villagers are angry about Taliban deaths," the HRCP member, Zain Ul Abedin Khan, said. He added that in the district of Dir, also in the NWFP, there had already been protests by villagers who vowed to get rid of non-Pashtun refugees. He warned that there could soon be increasing attacks on innocent asylum-seekers. Returnees Regarding returnees to other parts of Afghanistan which had fallen to the Northern Alliance, Kaba said the majority were from Iran, with a total of 45,000 Afghans going home in the past few months. However, of this number it was not known how many were official refugees or migrant workers returning home. The number of those returning from Pakistan was unclear, she said, adding that there had been some monitoring over the weekend at the Torkham (Towr Kham) border in the NWFP, where 2,500 Afghans had crossed back into their homeland. Some 1,500 were said to have returned to Kabul, most of whom had fled during the US-led air strikes, but wanted to be home in time for winter, the refugee agency reported. There is also concern over some of the areas to which people are returning. Some civilians who left Kabul are going back to the Shomali Plains region, some 20 km from the capital, an area plagued by land mines. UNHCR has said it is also preparing for returnees and is sending supplies to the capital, Kabul; the first convoy, carrying tents, blankets and plastic sheeting, arrived there over the weekend. A distribution of essential items needed for winter, including charcoal, stoves, clothes and quilts for some 10,000 people was due to be completed at the end of November, it said.