No dramatic increase in refugee numbers, but food shortages in Afghanistan of major concern

The influx of refugees from Afghanistan into Pakistan has not risen dramatically since the first air strikes were launched on Sunday, ACT members Church World Service (CWS) and Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) report.

The border to Pakistan is still closed. According to CWS, no huge numbers of refugees are gathering at the border near Quetta. Reports are that more people had gathered there before the air strikes and that many had returned home since.

Although the border is officially closed, hundreds of refugees are crossing illegally in the Peshawar area every day. However, this figure does not vary much from those of the last weeks, as the local partners of NCA point out. Representatives of ACT Afghan partners explained that people were afraid to move once the strikes started. People also seemed to be hesitant to leave for Pakistan, knowing that the border is closed and that they could possibly get stuck there and have to stay in the open air. Many people are reported as not seeing the need to move at the moment, as the strikes have turned out to be focussed on military targets.

A staff member of NCA who was concerned for the safety of his family in Kabul was relieved to hear his father say on the telephone, "I am safe in Kabul".

"Life in Kabul is normal. Buses are operating between the cities", said an Afghan man who returned to Peshawar yesterday from a two-day visit to Kabul. "It was very frightening during the bombing, because I was near the airport which was hit", he added. His impression of the mood of the people was that most were reasonably calm. "Before the strikes, they were much more frightened". Most people who enter the country stay with relatives in Pakistan and do not go to the camps.

The situation in Afghanistan is of great concern to ACT members. After the September 11 attacks in the US, many people fled from cities to rural areas adding to the number of those who have already been internally displaced by drought and civil war. ACT members say that thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) are in urgent need of food and shelter. ACT members are preparing for the distribution of food provided by the United Nations World Food program (WFP), before the start of winter. Part of the plan is to add more food to the 120, 000 metric tons of wheat provided by WFP. This will include oil, rice and sugar to help the most needy. After halting its activities briefly after the military attacks, WFP announced that it had started operating again in Afghanistan.

ACT members NCA, Caid and CWS are all to distribute the food through their local partners in Afghanistan. The plan is to transport the food to central points in the country. The NGOs will then be responsible for the distribution of food at district level.

In Peshawar, an NCA representative stressed that it is crucial that the people in Afghanistan are supported, to prevent them from becoming refugees within their own country. "Of special concern are the people living in remote mountainous areas of the country," he said.

Already more than two million people in Afghanistan are living with acute or high food shortages according to a survey by WFP. People who live in the north of the country, an area where it is crucial that adequate food supplies are in place before the start of winter, are especially vulnerable. Timing is everything and the relief action is under enormous pressure, as the country essentially becomes cut off after November 15. The ACT Coordinating Office will issue a revision of the original appeal, ASAF11 on Friday, October 12, 2001.