Mountain Campsites being prepared

There is still no big influx of refugees, but in Quetta, it is believed that more and more people are arriving from Afghanistan. They are said to be making their way to relatives and friends, rather than heading for the camps.

At the border near Quetta and Peshawar, preparations are underway to ready camps for a possible influx of refugees. It is an area characterised by rugged mountains and a harsh climate. For the people who call these highlands along Pakistan's border home, the last few years have been tough. Along the riverbed, shovels lie abandoned. Water, the most precious of resources, has been extremely scarce for the last three years now. To find water, the inhabitants of the area have to dig wells in what seems to be a landscape constructed entirely from rock. One well is fifty meters deep. Small pockets of green dot the area around the wells -- the only colour in an otherwise inhospitable environment.

High up in the mountains near the Khyber Pass, barely six kilometres from the border, lies one of the 15 sites the UNHCR has been allocated as a possible site for a camp in expectation of a big influx of people from Afghanistan. ACT member, Norwegian Church Aid (NCA), in co-operation with the Danish consortium, DACAAR, who specialises in water supplies, is responsible for water and sanitation. The proposed camps are designed to accommodate 10,000 people each.

A field strewn with boulders and rocks near Shalman camp is being cleared to accommodate 3,000 people. A pall of dust obscures everything as the drivers of the graders and front-end loaders go about their work. Yar Mohammed stares at the site. "No water. Where can it come from?" he asks. Then he sets off to find a solution. The nearby villages all have wells and he asks the villagers whether they would be willing to provide water for the camp. Something else worried him too. Six hundred pit-holes for latrines, each six metres deep, have to be dug for the 10,000 people who could possibly find refuge in these camps. This is a difficult task, as much of the site is located on solid bedrock. Therefore, everything is more expensive.

But there is hope. The negotiations with the villagers are successful and they are willing to supply the camp with water, should the need arise.

The massive task of preparing the campsite is well under way, but there is still no sign of the people who may eventually seek refuge in this mountainous border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

For practical and security purposes it has been agreed that the UNHCR will transport all relief goods provided by the NGOs to a collection point close to the tribal area in which the camp is located. From there, the Pakistani administration, and specifically, the Commissioner for Afghan Refugees, will take care of the transport to the campsites, along the narrow roads through the mountains. Complex as this agreement may seem, it is a necessary step, as foreigners are not allowed into the tribal areas without security clearance or guards. The tribal areas do not fall under the jurisdiction of Pakistani law and are not considered safe and Pakistani administration officials have been reluctant to issue permits.

In Peshawar at the checkpoint that allows access to the Khyber agency where Shalman camp is located, a sign says, 'Welcome to Khyber Agency'. For foreigners who get this far, there is however another message. A sign reads: 'Attention: Entry of foreigners is prohibited beyond this point'.

Campsite preparations are well underway and if all goes well, water and sanitation equipment could be brought in within a week's time. Although NCA is involved in the site preparations, much of the agency's focus has now shifted to food and shelter distribution inside Afghanistan. ACT members Church World Service (CWS) and Christian Aid (CA) are also focussing on this aspect of humanitarian aid.