Cold kills refugees in Jalozai camp

At least 15 Afghan children have died of exposure in Jalozai refugee camp, 35 km southwest of Peshawar, capital of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, AFP reported on Monday. Government official Shahzad Hussain said 11 children died between 29 January and February 12 as a result of pneumonia and other respiratory problems brought on by the cold, the report said. Another four succumbed to freezing temperatures on 15 February, it added. This follows confirmation to IRIN by the office of UN Coordinator for Afghanistan that cold conditions had killed 170 internally displaced Afghans, mainly children and elderly, in the western city of Herat, despite news reports of much higher estimates, many of them in the hundreds. While unable to confirm the reported deaths in Jalozai, UNHCR senior programme officer Zivan Damato told IRIN on Tuesday that the situation was bad. "Given access difficulties, it is difficult to estimate the number of people at Jalozai but I expect it to be between 7,000 to 15,000 families," he said. " We are providing as much community-based assistance as possible (such as sanitary facilities and potable water) to improve the conditions in Jalozai. However, conditions remain poor." According to UNHCR, Pakistan has received over 155,000 new Afghan refugees since September, making this influx the largest since the capture of the Afghan capital, Kabul, by the Taliban Islamic Movement in September 1996.