PESHAWAR: Afghan refugees leading a miserable life
By Intikhab Amir
PESHAWAR, Nov 6: Musa Badghai, a middle-aged Afghan from the Paktia province of Afghanistan, along with his two wives and 18 children lives in a small shanty set-up along the pathway of flood water in the Tajabad area here.
The family has no money after having spent whatever little funds it had by paying Rs400 per person to the tribesmen involved in helping Afghan families fleeing war in Afghanistan to enter Pakistan through unfrequented routes between the two countries.
Clad in shabby shalwar-Qameez, Musa is not, apparently, concerned about the warm clothing the family, especially the one- and-a-half dozen children, would need to brace the harsh winter while living in a shanty made with wooden clubs, plastic sheets and used clothes.
His prime concern is, apparently, the decreasing stocks of food stuff the family had brought from Afghanistan along with a nice horse and a dog.
“We (Afghans) have been made scapegoats, but hardly any body among the world community is concerned about the people, the way we are leading a miserable life here,” said the bearded Afghan, who was forced by continued drought and threat of US attacks to leave his country. The only option the family has got to survive the tide of the time, in an apparent near future, is Musa’s horse.
The family is considering to sell the horse to raise the much wanted funds for food requirements.
“The government is repatriating the illegally entered Afghans, hence, I can not take risk to go outside to find job,” said Musa.
About 200 Afghan families, arrived from Afghanistan through unfrequented routes in the post Sept 11 situation, are encamped along the rain course in Tajabad — a residential area in Peshawar predominantly occupied by Afghans.
The newly arrived Afghan families, living in shanties and tents made of plastic sheets, are undergoing the worst kind of predicament.
They have neither proper shelter nor clothing. Nor do they have proper utensils to cook food nor warm bedding to brace the harsh winter nights of Peshawar.
United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) is unmoved for the Tajabad tentage village, set up on a private land whose owner charges every family Rs100 per month each, is not a proper camp for refugees. Nor the Afghans settled there have been granted refugee status.
“UNHCR can only extend them help if the provincial government registers them as refugees and the place they are presently living in be declared a refugee camp,” said sources in the world body.
On the other hand, the NWFP government appears to be hardly concerned about the inhabitants of the Tajabad tentage village.
“Unless they are living in a proper refugee camp we can not take care of them, we are not responsible for them,” the commissioner Afghan Refugees Commissionerate, NWFP, said in his last held press conference at Peshawar.
A visit to the area unfolds plight of the new arrivals — after the country (Pakistan) they consider their second home is not accepting them any more whereas their own homeland has become one of the most unsafe places on the earth in the wake of continued bombing by the allied forces.
“Tell us where should we go,” said Javed, who lost his younger brother on the family’s way to Peshawar through an unfrequented route from a mountain on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
The family buried the 18-year old boy on way to Peshawar.
The presence of so many unregistered and illegally arrived Afghan families in Tajabad area appears to be nothing more than an intentional silence on the part of the government which repatriated thousands of illegally entered Afghans to Afghanistan before the Sept 11 crisis started.
Apart from the UNHCR and provincial government who have their limitations in respect of not extending help to the Tajabad dwellers, the unfortunate Afghans of the Tajabad tentage village could not impress the local non-governmental organizations and religio-political parties engaged in raising funds and donations to help Taliban and Afghans inside Afghanistan.
The Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam, Jamaat-i-Islami coupled with some other religious organizations have set up camps across the province for raising funds and receiving donations for the Taliban.
However, none of these religious parties and apart from a couple of charity organizations ever thought of extending help to the needy Afghans forced to live under inhuman conditions.
