No food, no money -- the despair of being a refugee

The expression on the old woman's face is one of despair -- her eyes offering a mute plea. She does not say a word, but approaches everyone who goes in and out of the building, trying to get as close to them as possible. She shows them a small slip of paper that she clutches in her fist. There is only the acronym, UNHCR, printed on it. One can only assume that she believes that by showing the crumpled piece of paper to people, that somehow a miracle will happen and that someone will help her.

The UNHCR has expressed its concern in meetings with NGOs about the refugees who cross the border illegally, ending up with relatives and friends in existing camps that already offer refuge to thousands of people. The UN organisation has asked NGOs to help monitor the movement of these people, as the influx of people is cause for concern. There is no official record of them and no one knows what the impact of their presence will be on the existing refugee population. People agree that there is a definite need for better information about these so-called "invisible" refugees.

Mohammad Gul is not invisible. He is alive, he is in Pakistan and he needs help. He fled from Kabul to Peshawar with his wife and five children. He says that a bomb killed one of his cousins. His children, ranging in ages from six to fourteen, who are waiting with him in a small park near the UNHCR office, ask him for food. They are hungry, but he can only shrug helplessly. "We have no food and no money to buy some." He also does not know where they will stay at night. "We have no place to go", he says. His wife Dil Zan, wearing the traditional Afghan veil, points to a bag made of sackcloth. "This is the only property we could bring with us from home."

There are about 200 existing refugee camps in Pakistan that is home to more than two million people. In a recent statement released by the UNHCR, the organisation says that arrangements have been made to accommodate 300,000 refugee, but that help can only be provided if the government of Pakistan opens its border to these people.

According to the UNHCR, more than 60 tents have been put up in the Quetta area at the Killi Faizo temporary staging site. The site housing about 150 refugees, is some two kilometres inside Pakistan, close to the south western Shaman border crossing. Some of the families now living here arrived via the official entry point, while others entered illegally, crossing in the hills surrounding the area - a sign that pressure at the borders is mounting daily as more people want to cross into Pakistan.

Many of the new arrivals go to the old camps, some of which have been in existence for 20 years. One of these camps is Jolozai camp that lies 30 kilometres west of Peshawar. This is one of the first camps many people go to, where they end up trying to eke out an existence as traders. Others depend on hiring themselves out for daily labour, in direct competition with the local Pakistani population. This has led to increased tensions between the locals and the refugees, as the Afghan people charge only about 40 Rupees a day (about 68 cents US) for their labour, whereas the going rate by Pakistani labourers is about 150 Rupees (about $2.55).

In Mansehra in the northern part of Pakistan, ACT member Church World Service (CWS) provides health services for about 60,000 refugees from Afghanistan living in camps. Here too, as in Quetta in the Southwest and Peshawar in the Northwest, elders of the community complain of mounting hostilities between the refugees and the local community because of the competition for labour and trade.

Similar problems exist in Shamsatu, another sprawling camp, 45 kilometres outside the town of Peshawar. It stretches across a 5 kilometre dry, barren area and is home to more that 52,000 refugees who live in over a thousand homes built from mud. Temperatures here can reach up to 50 centigrade in the summer, but in winter drops to below zero degrees centigrade. Water is always in short supply. Food comes from the UN’s World Food Program (WFP), which distributes food parcels to families every month.

A local partner of Action by Churches Together (ACT) International, Norwegian Project Office (NPO) works in this camp in the area of education and health. NPO supports the 17 schools in the camp which are run by teachers who themselves are refugees from Afghanistan. Classes are held in tents and up to 400 pupils, varying in ages from four to twelve, receive their schooling here. More than half of the students busy at drawing pictures on this particular day, are girls. Their drawings depict the reality of their lives -- the war in Afghanistan -- an aircraft pounding the countryside with bombs, tanks, bodies strewn across the landscape and in one, a frigate launching missiles. There are also drawings of kalishnikovs, rocket launchers and life in the camps.

Meanwhile work continues to prepare new campsites in the Khyber agency -- a tribal area where the government of Pakistan in anticipation of a big influx of refugees has set aside tracts of land. It is an inhospitable, mountainous area, where water is scarce, roads narrow and steep and where modern amenities simply do not exist.

The UNHCR will provide food and shelter if the people come. ACT member, Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) will also provide food, as well as water and sanitation equipment. DACCAR, a Danish NGO, will supply the water.

In Pakistan, humanitarian aid workers work at being ready, doing what they can to help those who have straggled across the border, but not sure when and if the expected influx of thousands of refugees will come. And in Afghanistan, the start of winter in about three weeks and the ongoing military strikes continue to pose a major threat to a people already made vulnerable after years of civil war and a severe drought that has devastated the country.

For further information please contact:

ACT Communications Officer Callie Long (mobile/cell phone +41 79 358 3171)

Or ACT Press Officer Rainer Lang (mobile/cell phone + 41 79 681 1868).

ACT Web Site address: http://www.act-intl.org