PRESS BRIEFING BY THE U.N. OFFICES FOR PAKISTAN AND
AFGHANISTAN ( 07 January 2002)

The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today’s UN briefing by U.N. Spokesperson Stephanie Bunker (excluding question and answer session).

** Stephanie Bunker, UN Spokesperson

The Special Representative Mr. Lakhdar Brahimi met yesterday with Afghan members of Afghan and international NGOs as part of his series of meeting with members of Afghan civil society.

Today, he met with Zalmay Khalilzad, the Envoy of the United States President for Afghanistan. During the meeting the Special representative briefed Mr. Khalilzad overall on the activities of the United Nations in Afghanistan.

He also met today with a group of tribal elders from Khost. They had come to visit Chairman Karzai of the Interim Administration and paid a courtesy call on Mr. Brahimi.

Mine action teams continue to work in and around Kabul. On 3 January 108 different UXOs have been discovered and destroyed by explosive ordnance disposal personnel and manual teams around Bagram and Kabul.

Reconnaissance/ assessment teams work to assess places hit by the Coalition air strikes prior to their clearance by United Nations mine action teams. One such team is working at Rishkhor, Char Asaib District Kabul. This area was struck on 11 October. Eleven bombs and four missiles had hit the area where there was a military compound. One mosque, a fuel store, two vehicles and four weapons stores were completely destroyed. Four blocks were destroyed. No civilians were killed. All bombs and missiles exploded except for one, which is missing; there are no pieces left to identify what kind of ordnance was used. An explosive ordnance disposal team will search for the missing missile.

On 4 January the Salang pass partially opened for small cars. Work on the southern portion is completed but is ongoing on the north.

Tomorrow morning at 10:30, the Special Representative Mr. Lakhdar Brahimi will visit Kabul airport. He will view the United Nations de-mining activities taking place there. A flail machine will be clearing the eastern end of the runway, that is the approach to the runway. This prepares the land for subsequent battle area clearance. Meanwhile, Afghan Technical Consultants (ATC) will be working on clearing the grassy area east of the terminal and searching for UXOs. The Danish Demining Group (DDG) will be working on the western side of the terminal. Mine Dog Center (MDC) personnel and mine dogs will also be at work. MCPA will be working in tandem with the mine dog teams.

This work is essential before Kabul airport can receive international flights in accordance with the regulations of the International Civil Aviation Organization.

Abdul Latif Matin, Regional Manager of Mine Action in central Afghanistan, will brief Mr. Brahimi on the work at the airport and will also discuss the mine and UXO problem in Afghanistan.

On the Pakistani border some 3,000 people stranded since the New Years day in the no-man’s land at Chamanborder crossing with southern Afghanistan have all been registered at Killi Faizo staging site. But the border security intensified along the Pakistani borders over the weekend, and refugee flow has effectively stopped at the Chaman border as the authorities declared the border closed as of yesterday.

In the Northwest Frontier Province, UNHCR dispatched a field team this weekend to assess the information that several thousand people are stranded on the Afghan side of the Terrimangal border between Paktia Province in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s Kurrum Agency, as they were denied entry into Pakistan.

UNHCR appreciates the heightened security concerns at the border with Afghanistan, but we must insist that borders remain open for innocent people fleeing for safety -- especially women, children and the elderly – so that they can be assisted properly in a safer area.

Families who arrived in Pakistan over the weekend say they fled in search of safety and assistance. The continued insecurity in southern and eastern Afghanistan shows that the conflict is not yet over in Afghanistan. Unless security, law and order are
restored throughout Afghanistan, humanitarian agencies will continue to be faced with a dilemma: without security, aid cannot reach effectively to those in need; without safety, people will continue to flee; and without safety, refugees and displaced families will not be able to return to their homes.

In Central Afghanistan, nearly 800 families have returned from Panjshir valley to the Shomali plain, assisted by UNHCR and other aid agencies since the New Years’ Eve. Between Thursday and Sunday, today, another 400 families returned to Estalif district aboard IOM buses.

Estalif is on a slope at the foot of a mountain range, overlooking the Shomali plain. As the villages are difficult to access, they have been completely empty until our return convoys began arriving last Thursday. Many villagers have seen their destroyed homes for the first time since the fled three years ago. They were happy to return to their picturesque villages, which used to be a popular site for families to spend recreational weekends, but were shocked to see the destruction, with demolished bazaars and only walls remaining in places that used to be their homes. All families were provided with winter tents on arrival, and they immediately began setting up a mini-camp site in the villages. Those returning to Dara, which is a large village accessible only by two-hour walk up the mountains, have decided to set up tents at the foot of the village, so that they can gradually return back to their homes with assistance packages.

Distribution of return packages, including heating items, are underway for returnee families in Bagram district and it has also begun in Estalif. After a quick assessment, shelter kits are also being distributed to those in need.

Tomorrow, we will begin the assisted return of internally displaced people back to their villages in the Qala Baugh district, a third destination cleared by demining agencies.

Although transportation and initial return assistance is well underway, much more needs to be done to help revive the communities decimated by war.

UNHCR is discussing with other agencies to launch development-type activities to help rebuild communities in the Shomali Plain, such as setting up medical clinics, agricultural rehabilitation, water and sanitation repairs.

In western Afghanistan, UNHCR has established two monitoring points in Herat, to obtain better understanding of the movement of displaced people from central Afghanistan. There are reports of daily new arrivals to an already over-crowded camp near Herat, but we need to ascertain if indeed they are those fleeing from central Provinces, genuinely seeking assistance.

There are an estimated 250,000 displaced people near Herat, including the largest camp at Maslakh, 20 km west of Herat. The six camps near Herat were set up by aid agencies in 2000 to help people fleeing from drought. The population has grown since September, with people fleeing from the conflict, drought and generally seeking aid. When a team of UN agencies returned to Herat a month ago and re-visited the camp, bringing in shelter and other aid items in addition to food distributed by WFP throughout the conflict since September, it was apparent that the camp situation needed to be improved with the increased population.

UN and other aid agencies have since been actively working with IOM, who coordinates the assistance for displaced people in western Afghanistan, to improve the situation, especially in Maslakh. UNHCR is helping to prepare for the re-registration of the camp population, which is indispensable in providing proper assistance to those in need. UN demining teams are checking the site at Mir Daud, south of Herat, so that a new camp can be established to re-direct the new arrivals. WFP and ICRC have been concentrating food distribution in Badghis and Ghor Provinces so that people do not have to leave their homes in search of assistance. Meanwhile, food, 10,000 tents and various non-food items are being delivered to Maslakh camp to benefit also the new arrivals.

The camps near Herat is by no means an easy situation, and it illustrates also the difficulties involved in providing humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan, where a large part of the population live in poverty, due to years of war and natural disasters. Aid
distribution often triggers movements of people, not only for those who are in real need of assistance. Unfortunately, it may also attract others trying to take advantage of the humanitarian activities for their own private gains. This is why we need to re-register the camp population, to identify who are the displaced people in need and others, visitors from nearby towns, for example, might be better assisted in their home communities, if indeed they are vulnerable.

There have been several critical news reports about the Maslakh camp in recent days. While the aid agencies agree to the critical situation, and we are trying our best to improve it, some reports are simply inaccurate, without looking into the background to this camp and the complexities involved in dealing with population movements. While people do perish from years of despicable hardships in Afghanistan, in or outside the camps, and conditions are not ideal in the over-crowded camps, people are being assisted there. We have regular health monitoring of the camp, and many deaths were occurring the UN would have been the first to sound the alarm.

The Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, Dr. Kamal Hossain, arrived in the region on 4 January and in Kabul today. In Pakistan, Dr. Hossain met with government officials, UN personnel, the ICRC, and NGOs. Here in Kabul he will meet with various ministers of the Interim Administration, UN officials, NGOs, representatives of civil society, ICRC and possibly others. Tomorrow he will be giving a press conference.

Mrs. Sadako Ogata, former High Commissioner for Refugees, who will chair the upcoming Tokyo Conference on reconstruction of Afghanistan, may visit the return areas this week. She will be in Kabul for a few days, to meet with the members of the interim Administration as well as Mr. Brahimi. She is scheduled also to visit Herat to see for herself the conditions and challenges of return and reconstruction of Afghanistan, before the Tokyo Conference. We will announce the details of her visit shortly.