ISLAMABAD: Minister for States and Frontier Regions Shehryar Khan Afridi on Sunday warned the international community and the United Nations that a humanitarian crisis was brewing in Afghan refugee camps due to prolonged lockdown amid the coronavirus outbreak.

The minister made the remarks while speaking to reporters at an Afghan refugee camp after installing a walk-through sanitation gate there.

The minister said that he had raised funds for helping out Afghan refugees stranded in the camps due to lockdown.

He said that on his request, Prime Minister Imran Khan had directed preparation of a special relief package for Afghan refugees despite financial difficulties being faced by the country.

“If Pakistan can roll out a special relief package for Afghan refugees, why can’t developed nations come to the rescue of the besieged refugees? Afghan refugees migrated due to the Afghan war under the UN umbrella. Now it is the responsibility of the UN and the world community to help these refugees,” he said.

Mr Afridi said that Pakistan was doing its bit to help these refugees despite the fact that Pakistan was not a signatory to the UN convention on refugees and its protocols.

The minister said that he had written a letter to the Pakistan representative of United Nations’ refugee agency, the UNHCR, to immediately divert funds to provide food to besieged Afghans in the refugee camps.

“I would call upon the United Nations Secretary General and UN High Commissioner for Refugees to please send food items to these Afghans in camps who are mostly daily wagers. The failure is no option,” he said and added that though the UNHCR had formed a crisis management cell on his request, there was a need to turn these measures into practical support.

He said food items were need to be sent to Afghan refugees on a war footing as the refugees were without food for the last two weeks.

Published in Dawn, April 6th, 2020