ISLAMABAD, Jan 11: The UNHCR has moved more than 114,000 out of 200,000 refugees who crossed into Pakistan after Sept 11 to ten newly-established camps situated in the NWFP and Baluchistan, UN officials said at a news conference here on Friday.

UNHCR spokesperson, Yusuf Hasan, said the refugees had been shifted to the camps from the urban slums and miserable squatter settlements to the better-equipped camps in the border regions of Pakistan. This week, the number of Afghans jointly shifted by the UN Refugee Agency and Pakistan’s Commissioner of Afghan Refugees crossed the 100,000 mark, he said.

Giving details of the refugee statistics in Pakistan post September 11, he said nearly 80,000 were relocated to five UNHCR-run camps in Chaman and Chagai districts and one established by the UAE Red Crescent Society. Another 34,000 were relocated from the Jalozai makeshift site and the nearby city of Peshawar to five camps in Bajaur, Khyber and Kurram agencies in the NWFP.

The spokesperson said the overwhelming majority of the relocated Afghans had been forced to flee their homeland by the dual effects of conflict and drought and had very little means of survival.

The spokesperson said the UNHCR was preparing eight more camps in Pakistan — five in the NWFP and three in Baluchistan — which were expected to be ready to receive new refugees by the end of next week.

The insecurity in Afghanistan was continuing to uproot more and more people and the number of Afghans stranded at the Chaman border continued to rise, he said, adding, there were now an estimated 7,500 people on the border.

According to the UNHCR, the security situation in southern Afghanistan is extremely unstable. “Afghans who cross the border speak of increasing banditry and the presence of armed Taliban in the area.” Relief activities, suspended in the region since last September, have not resumed due to the continuing insecurity in the southern region, and aid supplies are reportedly running low, the UNHCR warned.

About situation in Kurram agency, where an NGO worker was killed in the cross-fire between two rival factions, the spokesperson said the situation was now reportedly calm. The UNHCR Security Officer for the NWFP had reached the area to assess the situation and the refugee agency hoped to start the transfer of refugees to camps in the Kurram agency as soon as the security situation allowed, he said.