PESHAWAR, Jan 15: Many Afghan youth addicts are destined to suffer immensely in the face of closure of the treatment and rehabilitation centres run by an NGO, an Afghan doctor told Dawn on Wednfesday.
“The Afghan drug addicts, who were being treated by the NGO, Nijaat at three Afghan refugee camps, including, Khurasan, Akora Khattak and Jalozai in NWFP would end their operations by February 2003. The closure of these centres, has been prompted by the stoppage of funds by the European Community and other donor agencies,” said Dr Qasim Zamani, who established Nijaat, way back in 1991.
According to him, more than 3,000 addicted Afghan people, including women, children and youngsters had been treated at these centres, who were addicted either to heroin or opium.
The doctor said that the donors have stopped releasing funds in June 2,002, because they think that all Afghan refugees have gone to Afghanistan and now they allocate funds only for the NGOs working inside Afghanistan.
Nonetheless, the UNHCR figures say that about 1.6 million refugees are still living in camps inside Pakistan.
Dr Zamani had presently a waiting list of 1,500 Afghan addicts, wanting to be treated and rehabilitated, but he it would not be able to treat these patients, owing to nonavailibility of funds.
“We need $40,000 per annum to run these centres, because the treatment cost of a single patient is $100. Every addict needed 16 months to be fully treated and rehabilitated,” said Dr Zamani. He said that the 36 staffers of Nijaat located and then motivated the Afghan addicts for treatment, who were treated and provided counselling facilities at the centres for three months.
Those once treated also needed follow-ups, so that they could not fell victims to heroin or opium again and become useful members of the society and contribute towards the wellbeing of their families.
After treatment at the centres, the male patients are kept in the centres, whereas the female and children stay at their homes, said he, adding that Nijaat is the sole NGO providing treatment and rehabilitation facilities to the Afghan addicts free of cost. He said there were numbers of centres, but they charged the patients heavily.
The closure of the centres would also affect 600 people who were treated at the centres and needed to be in touch with the doctors for a period of at least one more year, so they could not start taking opium and smoking heroin again.