Military

DATE=11/30/01

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=AFGHAN / REFUGEES (L-O)

NUMBER=2-283719

BYLINE=DALE GAVLAK

DATELINE=GENEVA

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: The United Nations refugee agency (U-N-H-C-R) says thousands of Afghan refugees have been returning home from Iran, but it says thousands more are fleeing southern Afghanistan into Pakistan because of fighting and lawlessness. Meanwhile, other U-N agencies are trying to expand the distribution of medical supplies and food in the capital, Kabul. Dale Gavlak has this report from Geneva.

TEXT: The United Nations refugee agency says the number of Afghans fleeing the region between Kandahar and Spin Boldak area has nearly tripled, with over a thousand refugees arriving on Thursday at the agency's facilities in Chaman inside Pakistan.

Peter Kessler of the U-N-H-C-R says some 12-thousand Afghans arrived in recent weeks and others may be passing thorough the frontier at unpatrolled areas and filtering into places like Quetta in Pakistan.

///KESSLER ACT///

The Afghans who have arrived in the Chaman area, speak about increasing insecurity in the Kandahar-Spin Boldak area. There are concerns about lawlessness, fears of banditry along the road between Spin Boldak and Kandahar. These are desperate people. These are people who have no other way to get any further from the border.

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The World Food Program (W-F-P) says the continuing insecurity in southern Afghanistan has made most of the area off-limits to food distribution. It says it is trying to feed 17-thousand vulnerable Afghans in camps close to Spin Boldak. Officials also have plans to start providing food to more than one million residents of the Afghan capital, Kabul very soon.

W-F-P spokeswoman Christiane Bertiaume says the agency has now employed over two-thousand Afghan women to find out the food needs of households headed by women.

///BERTIAUME ACT///

Those 24-hundred have been hired to go, knock door by door to go inside, check what are the needs and register the people. Give them a register card so they come and pick up the food.

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Ms. Bertiaume says the W-F-P hopes to start school feeding programs for boys and girls once Afghanistan's educational system is operating.

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Meanwhile, local health authorities in Kabul have called on the World Health Organization (W-H-O) to lead the rebuilding of medical services in the city. Spokesman Gregory Hartl says the W-H-O has examined a number of hospitals in the Kabul area.

/// HARTL ACT///

We have done an assessment of 72 hospitals and looked at the conditions there and found that of the 72, 47 were listed as fair in the services they were able to provide. Twenty-two were rated at poor and the other three were rated as being good so there is still a range of what is available in Kabul. Obviously health services have decreased to a significant extent.

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The W-H-O says it will make H-I-V-AIDS counseling and awareness an important element in rebuilding Afghanistan's health services. (Signed)

NEB/DG/GE/KBK