PRESS BRIEFING BY THE U.N. OFFICES FOR PAKISTAN AND AFGHANISTAN (03 January 2002)

The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today’s briefing at the United Nations Information Centre in Islamabad by the United Nations offices for Pakistan and Afghanistan (excluding question and answer session).

** Eric Falt, Director, UN Information Centre

Good afternoon. The Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan, Mr. Lakhdar Brahimi is continuing his consultations in Kabul. Yesterday, he met among others with the Minister of Defense, Muhammad Qassem Fahim, and with the Chairman of the Interim Administration Mr. Hamid Karzai.

We expect to have more details from Kabul later today, most of which will be relayed by Stephanie Bunker at her 6:00 pm Kabul time briefing.

** Fadela Chaib, Spokesperson for WHO

As the security situation is improving and the establishment of a new interim administration in Afghanistan continues, World Health Organization (WHO) international staff evacuated on 12 September are returning to Kabul effective today.

The WHO Representative for Afghanistan, Dr Said Salah Youssouf is due to travel today to his permanent office based in Kabul. More than 90 per cent of the professional and other staff will move to Kabul in a month from today. The number of staff moving will be first determined by the readiness and availability of accommodation WHO can find in Kabul. A few people will
stay in Islamabad, mainly to deal with AFP purposes and other additional work for EPI, and also to look after administrative tasks.

In the other WHO sub–offices, several international and national staff will travel to strengthen WHO sub offices in Jalalabad, Mazar-I-Sharif, Herat, Kandahar, Faizabad, Ghazi and Kunduz.

WHO is present in Afghanistan with more than 200 international and local staff. WHO has eight sub-offices in the country. The WHO’s 177 national staff who have remained in Afghanistan since the beginning of the crisis will be soon joined by their
international colleagues.

WHO stated that the relocation is important to workclosely with the Ministry of Public Health, providing technical guidance, leadership and training. WHO programmes managers will work in close collaboration with their counterparts in the Afghan ministry at central and regional level.

** Chulho Hyun, Spokesperson for UNICEF

Some additional points on the ongoing measles immunization in Afghanistan, for your reference. You have seen on your TV screen the image of an Afghan mother holding her baby, who winces or even cries out sharply when that needle pokes into the arm, and I think one natural reaction might be how surprised that baby must be by the sudden pain. The other thought —one that the baby might also realize someday— is that We’re seeing part of an effort to save that person’s life.

Campaign organizers (from the Ministry of Public Health, UNICEF, WHO and various health NGOs) were scheduled to meet with vaccination supervisors today, and we should be getting some preliminary coverage figures for Kabul soon.

Wednesday’s turnout was reportedly good in Kabul, with a steady stream of parents taking their children to the 200 immunization centres in and around the city.

In addition to the two UN agencies I mentioned, the key partners providing financial support to this joint strategy include the governments of Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, Poland, Sweden, the United States and the United Kingdom.

The Kabul phase will run for roughly two weeks. Then, the campaign will start fanning out to other parts. For instance, vaccines and syringes will be sent to Herat this weekend, and supplement supplies already on the ground. The goal is to immunize 690,000 kids in the Western Region from the middle of the month. Similarly, the target population in the Eastern Region is around 700,000.

For Kandahar, we are watching for signs of stability, to start training Staff and carry out the vaccinations.

Measles is responsible for claiming the lives of an estimated 31,000 children, under the age of five, in Afghanistan last year.

In the middle of this winter, when children are hungry and are exposed to the cold, it is all the more imperative that this campaign reaches as many children as possible and reaches them quickly.

** Fatoumata Kaba, Spokesperson for UNHCR

In southern Pakistan, yesterday and today UNHCR managed to move some 1,000 Afghans to the Landi Kareze camp, about 15 km west of the Chaman border, out of the several thousands who unexpectedly arrived in the no man’s land area between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

At a time when thousands of Afghan refugees are crossing back into Afghanistan via the Chaman border—by mid-day today another 3000 returned--these families began to arrive near the Killi Faizo staging camp at the border on New Year’s day, after having traveled sometimes for as many as 20 days.

Some of the families have set up makeshift tents with clothing and plastic material to protect themselves at night in the no man’s land area. Just how many of them there are remains uncertain but at least 3,000 of them are visible while several other thousands are reported to be farther out of site in the no man’s land area.

The majority of these new arrivals come from southern Afghanistan while others have come from as far as Kunduz and Herat, respectively in northern and western Afghanistan. They come in groups of families and claim to have left as many as 20 days ago for those arriving from Kunduz. Twenty-eight Kunduz families explained that they had to flee their villages of Karghosi and Faryah over two weeks ago due to bombardments. They say that the bombardment was due to false suspicion of the presence of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters in their villages where some 150 villagers were killed, prompting them to flee southwards to Pakistan.

Testimony from eight other families coming from the village of Malakbarat in the Herat region, western Afghanistan, also indicate that they fled due to fear of bombardments that hit a nearby village nine days ago. Although their village was not directly targeted they felt frightened after hearing of the killing of 22 civilians in the bombardment. According to these families, more families are on the way to Chaman.

Another group of eight Kuchi nomad families, who arrived from Helmand today after a two-day journey through southern Afghanistan, also testified that there was some bombardment near Helmand that forced them to flee.

The majority of those arriving however, are from the internally displaced persons (IDP) camps of Spin Boldak where they complain about the lack of assistance. In addition, the refugees we interviewed also invoked drought as a cause for flight. We feel that if there is assistance inside southern Afghanistan, this influx may stop. Unfortunately, insecurity in southern Afghanistan continues to hinder delivery of much needed humanitarian assistance.

Meanwhile, UNHCR is working with its partners to find a solution on how to accommodate these refugees in the Chaman area. Already, we are in negotiations with the local authorities to extend our Landi Kareze camp northwards to increase its reception capacity. Due to land disputes, we are unable to extend our Roghani camp but we are also working with the managers of the
United Arab Emirates camp in the same location to see how their camp could be extended to take in more of the new refugees.