Refugees flee northeast for Pakistan

More than 8,000 Afghans fleeing intensified fighting in northeast Afghanistan have crossed into Pakistan, UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski reported in Geneva on Friday. The new arrivals said they fled their homes in the wake of indiscriminate aerial attacks in which some of their relatives were either killed or maimed, he said. The refugees, predominantly Dari-speaking Afghans from Baghlan, Parwan and Kapisa provinces, were camped in a makeshift area out in the open in Jalozai, some 25 km east of Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan’s NorthWest Province. They had erected temporary shelters from old plastic sheets, pieces of clothes and blankets but the site had no toilets or access to safe drinking water, and torrential rains had made already poor conditions worse, Janowski said.