ISLAMABAD, Feb 20: Increasing incidents of banditry and intimidating local commanders in Afghanistan have started a fresh wave of refugees seeking shelter in Pakistan whose number has gone up to 20,000 at the Chaman border, the UNHCR said on Wednesday.

Expressing concern at this new situation, the UNHCR said that over 20,000 Afghans were waiting to enter the Killi Faizo Transit Camp on the Pakistani border.

With hundreds more on the way, the UNHCR said, it was seriously worried about the dramatic increase in new influx.

The UN body said that over 50,000 Afghans had sought safety in Pakistan since the latest flow of refugees began on Dec 31, despite the end of massive US-led bombing, and the defeat of the Taliban.

Some 400 families were being registered daily into the Killi Faizo transit site while the remaining thousands waited just outside for their turn, living under makeshift plastic shelters that stretch off as far as the eye can see, the agency said.

According to the UNHCR, Afghans seeking refugee status in Pakistan after the installation of the interim administration in Afghanistan were looking more destitute than before.

The UNHCR staff travelling between Kandahar and Spin Boldak reported of seeing people walking along the road from Kandahar to the Chaman border or riding tractors. Many of the new arrivals are Kuchis, Afghan nomads, who said they had ran out of food due to the unrelenting effects of the drought.

Some ethnic Paktoons, among the new arrivals, told stories of being robbed and intimidated in mixed villages in the north, often at the instigation of local commanders, before deciding to seek safety elsewhere, the UNHCR said.

Most of the Afghans in the newly-arrived group belong to Jozjan, Faryab, and Badghis provinces of Afghanistan.

Other refugees said they left the makeshift displaced persons’ camps at Spin Boldak in southern Kandahar province as they did not receive any assistance.

The UNHCR said it was already caring for 144,000 persons in nine camps, and one transit area in Balochistan, not counting the nearly 20,000 Afghans waiting to be registered and moved to one of the new camps.

In the NWFP, over 60,000 new Afghan refugees are lodged in six camps. This also includes people transferred from the now- closed Jalozai camp and unregistered refugees being relocated from Peshawar.

Overall, more than 204,000 Afghans are lodged in 16 sites inside Pakistan’s border belt. More than 250,000 Afghans crossed into Pakistan since last September.

The UNHCR said the Pakistani authorities were very cooperative in allowing the Afghans to enter the country, but the pace of latest movements pointed to the urgent need for more to be done inside Afghanistan especially to alleviate the affects of the drought, and to ensure that banditry and security is better controlled.

In all, there are currently more than 3.5 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Iran.

Although more than 143,000 refugees have voluntarily returned to Afghanistan from Pakistan and Iran, the UNHCR feared that if the current pace of new arrivals continued, more people might actually come out of the country than go back.