October 16, 2001	Tuesday	Rajab 28, 1422

QUETTA, Oct 15: The Taliban’s southern capital of Kandahar is virtually empty as thousands of refugees dodge US bombs and missiles in their flight to safety, UN officials said on Monday.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) spokesman Rupert Colville said about 1,000 refugees were crossing the southeastern Afghan border into Pakistan each day.

“That’s 30,000 new arrivals in the last month. Many more have tried but their whereabouts are unknown,” he said in Quetta.

A similar number had crossed the border into the North West Frontier Province. The UN’s numbers match Pakistani estimates that between 1,000 and 2,000 people are entering here each day.

UN spokesman Eric Falt said relief agencies, already under enormous pressure to prepare refugee camps for the influx of refugees into Pakistan, were being forced to work harder.

“The situation in Afghanistan is becoming more intense by the day,” Falt told reporters in Islamabad.

“We must redouble our efforts to prepare for possible larger arrivals.”

Colville said human smugglers were cooperating with Taliban troops in Afghanistan, causing friction among tribal elders on both sides of the border.

“The average cost of a trip from Kandahar to Quetta is about 1,000 rupees for each person.

That equates to about 100 US dollars per family and this is a huge amount of money in Afghanistan and most people simply can’t afford this.”

As a result, the poorest people stay in Kandahar, a dustbowl surrounded by jagged cliffs and stoney fields about 200 kilometres northwest of here.

Afghan refugees have said that banditry is on the rise with people attempting to seize abandoned goods, while reports of Taliban troops fleeing into the countryside are also widespread.—AFP