IOM PRESS BRIEFING (02 October 2001)

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) today faces two major challenges in Afghanistan:

1. Saving lives of internally displaced persons as winter approaches, and

2. Getting a menu of programmes ready for the new circumstances in Afghanistan that we see coming fast.

Internally Displaced Persons

The crisis of the internally displaced exists now and will continue whatever happens next. Winter will not wait. There are more than one million Internally Displaced Persons still INSIDE Afghanistan. Our assistance continues.

Since this spring, IOM has had the lead for the coordination of IDP assistance in the western region of Afghanistan, and in two provinces in the northern region, Kunduz and Faryab.

Since September 11, and despite the evacuation of international staff from Afghanistan, IOM national staff in Herat and Kunduz have been able to continue their work on behalf of over 190,000 IDPs without interruption. From Islamabad, we remain in regular contact with them and we are able to provide the resources needed for continued project activity.

• In Maslakh IDP camp in Herat (the largest camp in the country), IOM staff are racing the coming winter with an emergency shelter project that is producing bricks for repairing shelters and building new ones. IOM is employing 1,000 IDPs in a cash-for-work scheme.

• In Bagh-I-Sherkat and Amirabad IDP camps in Kunduz province, IOM staff have completed the registration of 3,183 families and today began a survey to assess shelter and winterization needs.

Our goals for IDPs are

1. Winterization: ensuring that there are no deaths this winter from exposure to the cold.

2. The stabilization of population movements through camp management, returning IDPs to their place of origin and providing assistance to villages at risk.

As a part of the UN Emergency Humanitarian Appeal for Afghanistan launched last Thursday by SG Kofi Annan, IOM is appealing for US$ 29.3 million. Out of this amount, US$ 6.4 millions are required for immediate assistance.

In addition to its presence inside the country, IOM is opening logistic support centers located in Iran, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan to put in place the logistics needed for cross-border humanitarian support.

The Iranian government agreed to open its border for IOM cross-border transportation of winterization items, from Mashad in Iran to Herat. On Thursday this week, four truckloads of IOM humanitarian assistance will enter into Afghanistan at Islam Qala border crossing. IOM today received approval from authorities in Tadjikistan and Kunduz province to carry out a similar cross-border shipment of winterization items on Thursday.

In the meantime, people continue to come to IOM for help. Three days ago, 40 families from Badghis province arrived at Maslakh camp and were registered by IOM.

Programmes for a changed Afghanistan

The menu of possibilities includes return movements of IDPs and refugees, tool kits for farmers, job retraining for returnees, including former combatants, recruitment and placement of qualified Afghans needed to rebuild the country, reinforcement of communities impacted by return movements, technical assistance, information campaigns and a whole range of similar activities. To complement the existing knowledge on population displacements in the region, IOM, UNDP and the national authorities will cooperate in the implementation of a survey on the socio-economic and environmental impact of the refugee populations in Pakistan.