ISLAMABAD, Jan 5: The UNHCR has sent staff to the Kurram Agency to assess the number and condition of refugees amassing on the Afghan side of the NWFP border which according to independent estimates is said to be in several thousand.

Speaking at a news conference here on Friday, UNHCR spokesperson Fatoumata Kaba said the Pakistani authorities had requested the UNHCR to assist them in relocating the new arrivals on the Afghan side of the common border.

She said deteriorating conditions in eastern Afghanistan was pushing more Afghan refugees towards the NWFP border of Pakistan.

The spokesperson said in the NWFP, the UNHCR had received information from authorities regarding the presence of several thousand Afghan refugees crowded at the Kurram Agency border area in an attempt to be admitted into Pakistan.

However, she said, the situation at the border in Chaman had remained unchanged with some 3,000 new Afghan refugees waiting in the no-man’s land area between southern Afghanistan and southern Pakistan.