UNHCR moves thousands to new Pakistan camp

UNHCR confirmed to IRIN on Thursday that 18,000 newly arrived Afghan refugees, who had fled to Pakistan to escape the war and drought there, had successfully been transferred to the new Shamshatoo refugee camp, 30 km south of the western city of Peshawar. UNHCR spokesman Yusuf Hassan said the operation, which was completed on Sunday, was part of the UN agency’s continual commitment to assist the recent influx of refugees into Pakistan from Afghanistan. According to Hassan, the recent refugees were mostly ethnic Tajik and Uzbeks from northeastern Afghanistan and Hazaras from central Afghanistan. Since September, more than 47,000 Afghans have crossed into Pakistan. The new Shamshatoo camp now has a population of 36,000, with an additional 5,000 people housed in the Akora Khattak refugee settlement, 50 km east of Peshawar and some 6,000 among the numerous camps in the southern Pakistan province of Baluchistan. Regarding UNHCR’s commitment in dealing with the refugee influx, Hassan told IRIN that UNHCR had recently sent Mohamed Abdi Adar to Peshawar, a senior emergency coordinator and specialist for the agency, who will be coordinating the assistance programme for the new arrivals. Pakistan hosts an estimated 1.2 million Afghan refugees, making it one of the largest refugee populations in the world.