The United Nations will begin moving Afghan refugees from temporary camps just inside the Pakistan border to more permanent and safer inland sites on Saturday, officials said on Thursday.
"We have identified three sites in Baluchistan province and eight in North-West Frontier Province, and we are expecting to start moving them (the refugees) on Saturday," said United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees spokesperson Peter Kessler. The UNHCR has had the sites ready for some time but has been hampered by the Pakistan government dragging its feet. Islamabad finally authorised the move on Thursday.
Kessler said the immediate focus would be on shifting refugees languishing in the Killi Faizo camp near Quetta in southwest Pakistan and the Jalozai camp near Peshawar. "The people there are the most desperate of the desperate. They need assistance and some kind of protected status. They need the benefit of being in a safer place," he said.
Killi Faizo is just 600 metres from the Afghan border, and there have been reports of Afghanistan's Taliban militia intimidating its inhabitants.
Kessler stressed the new camps, although more permanent and well away from the prying eyes of Taliban troops, were by no means luxurious. "They are still pretty basic sites but they are secure," he said. Most of the refugees who have fled the US bombardment of Afghanistan are women and children. Bureau Report