December 4, 2001	Tuesday	Ramazan 18, 1422

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CHAMAN, Dec 3: The Pakhtoon survivors from Northern Afghanistan, dislodged and uprooted in recent US air strikes and ground attacks, claimed ethnic cleansing by the Uzbek militia and its allies. Thousands of Afghan refugees fleeing from different areas of Afghanistan, including Mazar-I-Sharif, Balkh, Kunduz and Kandahar and entering into Pakistan through Chaman border.

Talking to this correspondent at the refugee camp near Chaman many Afghan refugees accused the Uzbek militiamen of genocide and killing of women and children following the fall of the Mazar-I-Sharif and other cities and towns in Northern Afghanistan.

“Most of the villages were burnt down and inmates were killed merely because we speak Pushto,” refugees claimed who arrived in the Killi Haji Faizo camp established by the UNHCR.

A teen-age boy, Raz Mohammed, said that the Uzbek militiamen chopped off tongues of people for speaking Pushto. Raz Mohammed who served in Karachi teashop and could also speak Urdu told this correspondent that Pakhtoons were singled out and killed by the forces loyal to Uzbek warlord Rashid Dostum.

“We have no other option but to flee for our lives,” young Raz Mohammad said adding that his father was killed in the war and he was forced to flee for his life and managed to reach Chaman along with his another brother and widow mother. “Many of our relatives were killed in their houses,” Raz Mohammed said.