Official warns of imminent refugee
crisis
By PATRICIA LEFEVERE
The situation in Pakistan is chaotic -- we have a refugee
crisis that hasnt yet happened, predicted Dale Buscher, director of
operations for the International Catholic Migration Commission. Buscher, based
in Islamabad, Pakistan, since Oct. 7 as head of the commissions emergency
response team, means that not only have an additional 110,000 Afghan refugees
swarmed into Pakistan since Sept. 11, but that Western aid donor countries are
uncertain about what to do to help them.
There are already 2 million refugees in Pakistan, many from the
period of the Soviet Unions 1980s Afghanistan invasion. On the Afghan
side of the border, an even graver crisis is building. U.N. Secretary General
Kofi Annan has warned of a humanitarian crisis of stunning proportions
unfolding as millions of internal refugees are threatened with hunger or
starvation as winter approaches.
Buscher said that the Afghan cities of Jalalabad and Kandahar,
across the border from Peshawar and Quetta in Pakistan, are said to be 70
percent empty of their previous populations, with most residents thought to
have fled into the countryside. As the war, the weather and the food shortage
worsen for these displaced Afghans, it is likely that they could increase the
refugee population, he said.
Reached by satellite telephone in Islamabad, Buscher, who has
spent the last decade in some of the most pock-marked places on the planet --
Croatia, Bosnia, Albania, Macedonia, Kosovo and Iraq -- said that many arriving
Afghan refugees fear Pakistan may deport them.
The new arrivals report they fled Afghanistan because both the
Taliban and Northern Alliance were recruiting and arming boys as young as 11 to
join their armies and militias. Once in Pakistan, some refugees have gone into
existing camps, said Buscher, while others have melted into the urban centers
of Peshawar, Quetta and Rawalpindi, living off the generosity of an extended
family or tribe.
The Migration Commission official is concerned that without
official registration as refugees, it is hard to know how the new arrivals will
get enough to eat.
The commission has submitted proposals to the United Nations High
Commission for Refugees to allow it to serve up to 10,000 extremely vulnerable
refugees, and to provide a further 100,000 people with broad-based community
services. It also seeks to bring similar services to needy urban-based refugees
in Islamabad/Rawalpindi, Peshawar and Quetta. But Pakistan isnt
keen, said Buscher, to have services provided to urban refugees.
They want them to relocate to the camps, he said.
In the event of a greater influx, donors such as the U.S. State
Department and the European Union are unclear about what to fund now and what
to restrict as contingency funding, said Buscher, though plans are underway to
erect 15 to 30 new camps or tent cities, each serving 10,000.
Buscher and his team spend most of their time negotiating with
donors and submitting proposals. The commission has had an office in the
Pakistani capital for two years, and while the anti-American protesters are
larger in number each week, they are less violent than in September when
cinemas and fast food restaurants linked to American culture were destroyed, he
said.
The [Pakistani] government is working hard to keep down the
violence. Its a very militarized-looking country with police
everywhere, Buscher said. Also, for the first time in his decade of
service with the commission -- which has taken him to war zones and refugee
centers in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and the Balkans -- he is the
identified enemy. Im at much more risk as an American than Ive been
in other conflict areas.
Westerners working for non-Muslim organizations here are
suspect, he told NCR. We feel less safe, though there have
been no incidents.
Buscher and his team do not leave their guesthouse at night.
The International Catholic Migration Commission, the
Vaticans global humanitarian arm, works closely with such partners as
Catholic Relief Services, Caritas International and Cordaid of the Netherlands
-- all of which are represented in Pakistan.
Patricia Lefevere is a special report writer for NCR.
National Catholic Reporter, November 23,
2001
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