DATE=11/25/1999
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=INDIA - AFGHAN REFUGEES (L-ONLY)
NUMBER=2-256523
BYLINE=ANJANA PASRICHA
DATELINE=NEW DELHI
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: Thousands of Afghan refugees, living in India
for more than a decade, say they are left without any
means of survival because the Indian government is not
recognizing them as political refugees and the United
Nations has slashed an aid program which helped them
for many years. Indian human rights groups say the
Afghan refugees are in urgent need of assistance.
From New Delhi, Anjana Pasricha reports.
TEXT: More than 300 Afghan refugees staged a silent,
sit-in protest Thursday outside the New Delhi office
of the United Nations High Commission on refugees.
They are demanding the reinstatement of aid and
resettlement programs.
More than 60-thousand Afghan refugees came to India in
the years following the 1979 Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan. The Indian government does not
officially recognize them as refugees-but has allowed
the UNHCR to operate a program for them.
However, in the last five years, the UNHCR has slashed
its aid program from 12-thousand to just one-thousand,
500 families. The refugees say they cannot work in
India because they have no residence permits and no
status as refugees-so it has become difficult for them
to survive day-to-day.
//begin act. of refugee#1//
The main problem is financial , no security of life,
no visa, nothing at all.
//end act. of refugee #1//
The refugees say they are forced to live in sub-
standard housing and often cannot even afford to send
their children to school.
//begin act. of refugee #2//
Afghan people don't have house money, school fees, we
don't have anything over here.
//end act. of refugee #2//
The UNHCR says it has slashed financial allowances for
the refugees because it shifted the focus of its
program from direct aid to helping the refugees attain
financial self-sufficiency.
But a recent study by the South Asia Human Rights
Documentation Center found most of the Afghan refugees
living in destitution in Delhi's shanty towns. Ravi
Nair, who heads the group, says among the refugees are
men who held prominent positions in Afghanistan before
they were forced to flee. He says many have become
street vendors earning about 40 dollars a month.
//begin Nair act.//
They already have been driven to desititution. It's
not the future, it is the present. There are generals
of the former Afghan army, judges of the former
Supreme Court of Afghanistan who are hawkers and
vendors on the streets of Malviya Nagar (a New Delhi
street)
//end Nair act.//
Human rights activists want the Indian government to
give the Afghans the legal status of refugees, and the
UNHCR to restore aid to them. (Signed)
NEB/AP/PLM
NEB/WTW/
25-Nov-1999 04:48 AM EDT (25-Nov-1999 0948 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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