The San Diego Union-Tribune

September 26, 2001

A-1

Refugees at a crossroads
   War could free them or make misery worse

By MARCUS STERN 
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE 

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- With near-constant artillery fire ravaging their village, drought destroying their crops and malnutrition setting in among their children, 250 people from the Afghan village of Parwan had little choice.

Three weeks ago, they packed their belongings and boarded buses for Peshawar, where they joined more than 2 million other Afghans -- the largest concentration of refugees in the world.

Today, they live like many Afghans here: They camp on sun-baked dirt in makeshift tents of sticks and tattered cloth. Children haul water through the haze and dust from a nearby mosque. Bathrooms are holes dug in the ground. Not surprisingly, the refugees' gaunt faces express little hope.

Now the clouds of war place the refugees at a crucial crossroads: U.S. military strikes in Afghanistan could pave the way for them to go home, many after two decades, or the attacks could aggravate and prolong the humanitarian tragedy.

A 25-year-old man named Sher is among those who made the trek from the Afghan village of Parwan three weeks ago. Standing among the ragged tents of his dusty new home in an area called Tajabad, Sher explained that drought had left the village without food, water and other necessities for a year.

Half the children were sick with dysentery and respiratory ailments because malnutrition had lowered their resistance, Sher said. He added that the area they left was a battle zone between the ruling Taliban forces and rebels fighting them, resulting in constant artillery shelling and machine gun fire.

In Peshawar, they are safe from the shelling and machine guns and well water is available. But otherwise they remain just as desperate, perhaps even more so because they are unwelcome strangers in a foreign city overwhelmed by 22 years of refugee saturation.

A nearby outdoor market is brimming with vegetables, fruit and meat, but it's of little use to Sher and most other villagers.

"Today I had some bread and chai (tea)," he said. "But I can not buy meat because it is very expensive."

Niaz Ahmad of the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees said relief agencies are gearing up to deal with the 1 million new refugees they expect in Pakistan and another 1 million in other bordering nations if U.S. military forces strike inside Afghanistan.

They have enough tents, drinking water and food baskets, he said.

"Let's just hope it's only 1 million. If it's more than that then it could be a huge humanitarian crisis," Ahmad said.

Dost Mohammad Arbad, founding administrator of the Peshawar refugee district, was far less sanguine than the U.N. official.

"They aren't ready for the refugees who are here. There's no food. No place to sleep. The future of the refugees is very dark," he said.

Afghan refugees began flooding into Peshawar in 1979 when the Soviet Union attempted to occupy their country. The flow continued as fighting raged over the course of a decade. The refugee population reached a peak of 3 million before the fighting stopped. Then it dropped to a little over 2 million. It increased again when Taliban forces fought their way into control of the nation.

A drought-related famine in Afghanistan triggered a new flow a year ago, but Pakistan quickly shut its border to refugees or the number would have risen much higher. The group from Parwan had bribed officials to get across the border, they said.

Today the Peshawar district contains 13 official camps containing a total of 586,270 residents. Many of the camps have evolved over the years into sprawling warrens made of mud homes where children have been born and are now raising their own children.

Jalozai, the largest camp, has 135,200 residents. Another has 92,240, according to a current count by the district.

M. Hussain Momand, a physician who established a hospital for the camps and ran it from 1984 to 1993, said mortality rates among infants and pregnant women in the camps is the highest in the world. Dysentery and respiratory ailments are commonplace, he said. And malnutrition reduces the ability of children in the camps to fight off viral infections.

Strong family ties and the strict Muslim code of conduct have protected the camps from other ravages that might have been expected, he said. But recently, after two decades, he sees signs that things are deteriorating further with rising drug use, crime and violence.

This week, the camps have been closed to reporters because refugees recently have taken to stoning journalists, according to camp administrators.

Many of the Afghans apparently see the possible strikes in their country as anti-Muslim. Thousands reportedly have left the camps in recent days to return to Afghanistan and fight against the United States, if it attacks.

Meanwhile, although the official camps have been off-limits, in many respects all of Peshawar is becoming a refugee camp. Groups like the one from Parwan are pitching their tents in back yards and vacant lots. Open space that two decades ago was fields, is being transformed into fetid and crowded unofficial camps.

One prospect for significant change after 22 years of misery for many of Peshawar's refugees is that America's war against terrorism might produce a more stable Afghan government and an internationally funded reconstruction program that would create jobs. Then many might return.

But that scenario seems rosy and remote in the face of the predictions that a strike inside Afghanistan would trigger a deluge of refugees.

Hashim, a produce merchant, sat on his pushcart yesterday afternoon surrounded by pungent guavas he was selling in a crowded Afghan outdoor market. Flies buzzed around his fruit and the air was fetid from the lack of sanitation. People squeezed past him like a parade of ants.

Hashim, 53, had fled Afghanistan for Peshawar in 1980. He shook his head when asked what he expected in the way of new refugees if bombs start falling across the border in nearby Afghanistan.

"Millions will come," he said. "Where they will live and how they will live, only Allah knows."