With war on the horizon, Afghan refugee crisis looms

1 million more could join 4 million driven out by years of chaos

09/26/2001

By GREGG JONES / The Dallas Morning News

KACHA GARHI REFUGEE CAMP, Pakistan – Sharif Ifullah's parents were part of the first wave of Afghan refugees that poured through the Khyber Pass into Pakistan after Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan on Christmas Day 1979.

They settled into this vast camp on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Peshawar, waiting for a CIA-funded war against the Soviets to end so they could go home.

Twelve years after the last Soviet troops left Afghanistan, the Ifullahs are still waiting.Today, they are among the 2 million Afghan refugees scattered around Pakistan. Two million more are in Iran, all forgotten casualties of the last great Cold War confrontation and world indifference, Pakistani and United Nations officials say.

And now, as the United States is poised to take military action against Afghanistan for refusing to surrender Osama bin Laden, Pakistan and Iran could be flooded with 1 million or more new Afghan refugees, U.N. officials warn.

"People have been on the roads in Afghanistan by the hundreds of thousands," said Peter Kessler, a spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. "If there's no resolution forthcoming, the humanitarian consequences will be huge."

Almost 6 million Afghans inside the nation rely on its World Food Program, the United Nations says. The program, which also serves Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Iran, has been cut back severely since Afghanistan's neighbors closed their borders.

In the eastern Afghanistan city of Jalalabad, "maybe 1 million people are suffering from hunger and are malnourished," said Samarkhil, who works as a truck driver on both sides of the border with Pakistan. "They are selling their sons and daughters to get food."

The looming refugee crisis is already starting to refocus world attention on the plight of the 4 million Afghan refugees living under difficult conditions across their border.

Kacha Garhi was the first camp created for the flood of refugees from Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion. Its mud houses provide crude shelter for about 150,000 people. The camp sprawls along the historic Grand Trunk Road leading to the Khyber Pass border crossing, about 20 miles away.

The refugees in Kacha Garhi and other camps struggle to make enough money to survive. They hold down the lowest paying jobs, driving horse carts, peddling fruits and vegetables, sweeping streets, camp residents and U.N. officials say.

For all the struggles they endure here – the refugees say they are hated by Pakistanis who see them as a drain on the national economy – their standard of living is significantly better in Pakistan than it would be in war-ravaged Afghanistan.

"The whole of Afghanistan is destroyed," said Sharif Ifullah, 21, who was born in this camp a year after his parents arrived and returns to Afghanistan four or five times a year. "There are so many unemployed, so many disabled people, crippled beggars everywhere."

After the decade-long war against the Soviets and another decade of factional fighting and civil war in Afghanistan, residents of Kacha Garhi do not welcome the talk of U.S. military strikes and more conflict.

"I would like to go back to Afghanistan," Mr. Ifullah said. "If there is peace in Afghanistan, I will not wait a minute to return to my home."

Samarkhil, who like many tribal Afghans uses only one name, was a baby when the Russian soldiers attacked his village and his family fled to Pakistan. Now, he transports television sets and other goods to sell in Afghanistan, returning to Pakistan with loads of Afghan fruits and vegetables.

He has just come back from Afghanistan, where "people are afraid of an American bombardment," he said. "People are trying to leave if they can. Afghans don't need more war. Everybody wants peace and stability. That is our hope."

The refugees say they want peace, but the threat of a U.S. attack has again fueled talk of war in Kacha Garhi and other Afghan camps – a Muslim holy war against their former supporter in the war against the Russians, the United States.

"Definitely, the Afghan people will fight against the United States," said Amin, 35, a camp barber who lost his left leg below the knee while fighting the Russians in 1986. "The Americans should look at what happened to the Russians in Afghanistan.

"War is not the answer to terrorism."

Abdul Qadeer also fought the Russians during the 1980s, joining the CIA-funded jihad as a teenager. He says he was in many battles and "killed many Russians."

The Russians were good fighters, but they lost the war because of "the wrath of God, and the wrath of the mujahedeen," Mr. Qadeer said. "If the Americans come to Afghanistan, I will definitely go fight again for the sake of my homeland. All Afghans will go."

As he spoke, an old man of perhaps 80 with a flowing white beard forced his way through the crowd gathered around an American reporter. The old man suddenly began thrusting a wooden staff like a spear at the reporter's chest, shouting indignantly with each thrust: "Is he an American?"

With developments from the outside world filtered through conservative Muslim clerics in the camps, the Bush administration's avowed war against terrorism has taken on a distinctly anti-Muslim hue to the Afghan refugees. Mr. bin Laden's denials of involvement in the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States are taken at face value.

As a result, the refugees struggle to understand why the Bush administration seems intent on turning the might of the U.S. military against a poor country such as Afghanistan.

"If Americans want to restore peace and stability to Afghanistan, then we will welcome them," said Samarkhil. "But if the Americans want to bomb the poor Afghans, then we will make a jihad against them. For the sake of Islam – not for the sake of Osama – we will fight the Americans."

Just down the Grand Trunk Road from Kacha Garhi, toward the Khyber Pass, Afghan refugees are selling freshly harvested grapes from wooden carts at the Karkhano outdoor market. One of the vendors, who made his way from Afghanistan on Sunday, described a scene of rising terror at the prospect of impending U.S. attacks.

"People have left their homes," said Bilal. "They're afraid of a U.S. bombardment. Those people who have weapons and guns, they are not afraid. But the unarmed people are trying to come back to Pakistan again."

Poor Afghans who don't have papers for entry into Pakistan are fleeing for rural provinces, he said.

Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia, a radical Islamic regime, has "urged the people not to leave Afghanistan," Bilal said. "The Taliban says we are not criminals, we have not harmed [Americans]."

Like other refugees, Bilal seemed bewildered by the United States' readiness to attack his country for what he sees as merely showing hospitality to Mr. bin Laden. "The U.S. government helped us in the past, so why are you doing this?" he asked.