TALIBAN - Refugee camps--conditions "horrid"

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Dubai:Wednesday, October 31, 2001

Conditions horrid in Taliban-run camps Quetta |Reuters | 31-10-2001

Malnutrition and dysentery are sweeping through a Taliban-run refugee camp on the Afghan side of the Pakistani border and many families are living in the open without shelter, the United Nations said yesterday.

The UN High Commisioner for Refugees urged Afghanistan's Islamic movement to allow people fleeing the U.S. bombing and three years of severe drought to cross to Pakistan where they can be cared for.

"The situation in Spin Boldak, the border post on the Afghan side of the border, is deteriorating rapidly," UNHCR spokesman Yusuf Hassan told reporters in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's southwestern province of Baluchistan.

"It appears that they are malnourished and suffer dysentery and diarrhoea. Judging by the medical severity of these cases, we are very concerned about the health of the internally displaced people in Spin Boldak and urge the Taliban authorities to allow them to seek assistance in Pakistan."

Hassan said there were also reports that some of the refugees in Spin Boldak had suffered injuries from U.S. air raids.

The United Nations says up to 1.5 million people may try to escape Afghanistan after the United States launched its air campaign on October 7.

The Taliban has established two temporary camps close to its southeastern border with Pakistan, one of them at Spin Boldak.

Hassan said the UNHCR had received worrying reports about the camp from people who have made it across the border. "It appears they are not allowed to leave," he said.

He said 700 people were housed in or around Spin Boldak. One hundred families were sleeping on the ground with no cover.

Hassan said there had been accounts of Taliban officials infiltrating UN-run camps in Pakistan and warning Afghans there not to talk about conditions back in their country.

-- Anonymous, October 31, 2001


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