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IRIN Focus on war-affected displaced in the north

A displaced mother and child on the outskirts of Herat fled several months ago from Ghor province where rain fed crop harvests collapsed due to drought. John James/IRIN
Time to wrap up warm

Despite stares from dozens of male onlookers, Sawlad Begum showed little remorse in breast-feeding her child in public. Sitting outside a tent at the Bagh Shirkat makeshift camp in the northern province of Kunduz, the mother of six told IRIN she was not concerned about who watched or what would happen to her if she was caught by the Taliban, who strictly require that women be covered from head to toe in public. “I have more important things to think about; like where my next meal is coming come from,” she said. Sawlad has been at the camp for the last six months and is just one of thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs) in the northern province of Kunduz, where displacement due to conflict has reached alarming proportions. “We have been told that entire communities have left areas affected by war and settled in Kunduz and Baghlan,” Jason Pronyk, Programme Officer for the UN Office of Co-ordination for Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), told IRIN. He added that it was difficult to count the number of IDPs, as there had also been massive displacement due to severe drought. Pronyk said there were hundreds of thousands of displaced families across the northern region, and roughly 40 percent were conflict-affected. The UN is carrying out an assessment of IDPs across the whole region, with the help of national and international NGOs. “We are identifying and prioritising the most vulnerable IDPs,” Pronyk added. “We simply cannot feed and provide shelter for masses of displaced people.” He described this as a “realistic strategy” based on the limited resources in hand. Many IDPs at Bagh Shirkat said they were forced to cross the front line between the northern provinces of Badakhshan, a stronghold of the opposition Northern Alliance, and Takhar. “We were forced out of our homes by the Taliban,” Sawlad said. “They told us to go or we would get hurt. We had no choice but to move,” she added. The misery is far from over for those who managed to cross the front line safely. With no means of income, the IDPs are desperate for food, clean water and shelter. Many have resorted to begging in the local markets to make ends meet. A combination of a dangerous border crossing and poor living conditions has already resulted in deaths. “At least 400 people have died in Kunduz since February. Many died while crossing the front line, and others from diseases,” Engineer Mohammed Ali, WFP Programme Assistant in Mazar-i-Sharif, told IRIN. Without accurate statistics, he feared the death toll could be much higher. A total of 2,291 families are living in Bagh Shirkat, a camp comprised of broken mud huts and tents. There is no sanitation, and an overwhelming stench of rubbish and human excrement fills the air, making the site a potential breeding ground for outbreaks of disease. Ali said that with rising temperatures, many IDPs were falling victim to tuberculosis, malaria and dehydration, while others were even facing starvation. Most IDPs said they were surviving on a daily diet of tea and bread. In an attempt to control the situation, UNICEF has started a mass regional vaccination programme, and is providing some medical assistance to the displaced, while WFP is distributing food. The food agency will be carrying out a survey to update statistics so it can target priority areas. Aid workers are equally concerned over being unable to keep track of numbers so as to plan assistance more effectively. “In a situation like this, it is very difficult for us to know exactly how many people are in the settlements,” Ali said. WFP has been encouraging each IDP community to appoint a representative who can inform UN staff about new arrivals. Pronyk added that registering legitimate IDPs was a difficult task, as desperation had led families to lie. He said some women were pretending to be widows so they could obtain an extra ration card for the family. Asked about how the Taliban were helping IDPs, Mullah Naqibullah, head of the Taliban Ministry of Martyrs and Returnees in Mazar-i-Sharif, told IRIN: “We do feel responsible for these people, but we don’t have the resources. We are relying on the UN and NGOs to assist the IDPs.” He added that those who had left home due to the fighting would eventually be able to return, but he could not indicate when this would happen. Meanwhile, in the neighbouring province of Baghlan, the situation remains equally dire. Thousands of families have left their homes in Badakhshan and Takhar to settle on disused land and buildings. The old university in Pul-i-Khumri, the provincial capital of Baghlan, is currently a makeshift home to some 400 families. Conditions for children are also concerning aid workers. Eight year-old Moujigal, whose face was covered in mud, had cuts and bruises on her feet because she had no shoes to wear. Oblivious to the lack of hygiene around her, she said she was glad her family had moved away, because there was fighting in her home town. “I could hear the gunfire and see the tanks. I was scared,” she said. IDPs in Baghlan have also faced problems of finding food and water. WFP officials said some wheat had been distributed at sites across the province a few weeks ago, but displaced Afghans said they needed much more. Although the university building is located near a market, with simply too many IDPs than the city can cope with, very few families are able to find work there. “We are doing whatever we can to earn money and we will stay here until there is peace,” one IDP told IRIN. Some women said they were doing domestic work in the homes of local residents and earning a couple of cents a day. Pronyk said the capacity of local communities was being exhausted, and that it would only be a matter of time before many IDPs became totally reliant on food aid. With fighting expected to increase over the next few months, aid agencies in the region said there was no indication that the IDPs would be returning home in the near future. “We believe these people will be displaced for a minimum of one to two years,” said Pronyk. He added that the main priority was to ensure that the IDPs would be sheltered in the winter months. “The ruling authorities need to wake up to the fact that the war is not ending,” said Pronyk. The UN is discussing the possibility of temporarily moving 5,000 families from Baghlan to a former Tajik camp in Mazar-i-Sharif called Sakhi. Water pumps and a sanitation system are already in place at the camp, and families will start moving there in July.


This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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