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Dateline ACTAfganistan 08/01Thousands of families suffering
Rainer
Lang, Peshawar, October 12, 2001 The family crossed the border through an old smuggler’s path in the
mountains. "It was like playing with your life", Lailema Khligi describes
the way through the mountains. She came with her 5-month-old son and
her husband to Peshawar where they are staying with family, who have
taken in three other relatives as well over the last few days. Many
of the refugees that trickle through the officially closed borders every
day end up staying with relatives. Others go on to one of the existing
camps near Peshawar. Nobody knows for sure how many more people will make their way to Pakistan
following the start of the bombing campaign against Afghanistan. ACT
members Church World Service (CWS), Christian Aid (CA) and Norwegian
Church Aid (NCA) are ready to help refugees in the possible new camps
in Pakistan. They are already assisting those affected by the crisis
in Afghanistan with shelter material and food aid. However, far more
is needed to help the millions of people caught up in this crisis. The ACT members in Pakistan have been working with their local partners
in Afghanistan for years helping people affected by a crippling drought
and a 20 year long civil war, as well as working with refugees in Pakistan.
Hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees live in and around Peshawar
near the border to Afghanistan, in north-western Pakistan, in camps
or in town. The 54-year old man points out that it would be too dangerous for him
to go back to Kabul. Karim Mullah is afraid of being detained again.
As a Tajik, he is a member of the other main ethnic group in Afghanistan
beside the Pashtun. His condemnation of the terrorist attacks on the US is sharp. "This
is not Islam." Now he worries whether his brother in Kabul is fine. Karim, who works as a cook with an aid organization, boosts his income
by selling carpets made by Afghan refugees. But the carpet making industry
has collapsed since the terror attacks in the US on September 11, creating
a whole new set of problems for this community in Peshawar. Thousands
of families are suffering local partners of ACT member NCA in Peshawar
point out. Many of the refugees who live in the residential areas in
Peshawar had made their living on carpet weaving.
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Lailema Khligi fled her home in Afghanistan a day after the US-led attacks
on Afghanistan started. "I feared the chaos in the country which always
comes when fighting starts", says the 29 year old women. She and her family
lived in Kabul. "It was very difficult without work and enough food",
Lailema says. Trained as engineer, she had not been allowed to work for
the last five years, because of a strict ban by the Taliban that decreed
that women could not work.
Karim Mullah came to Peshawar fourteen years ago. He fled the civil
war in his country after spending four years in prison. He says that
as a Tajik from the Panshir valley, the Pashtun suspected him of being
a supporter of the opposition fighters. The Pashtun in Kabul arrested
him. "There are too many problems in Afghanistan", he says. "No work,
no food and civil war."