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CNN Live At Daybreak

Massive Refugee Crisis Threatens Countries Around Afghanistan

Aired October 11, 2001 - 09:37   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: The air strikes that hit the southern Afghan town of Kandahar sent about 1,000 people fleeing for the border.

Miles O'Brien now with more on the growing refugee crisis and a bit of perspective as well.

Miles, hello.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Bill, let's put it all into perspective, if we will. According to relief agencies there are about 6 million Afghans who need some kind of relief or food to sustain themselves. In addition to years and years of war in Afghanistan, there have been many years of drought.

Let's take a closer look at the numbers and put this into perspective with some of the numbers that the U.S. is telling us are being -- as far as those food packet air drops we've been talking about. As we take a little tour around Afghanistan, the biggest number of refugees exists currently in Pakistan. There are 2 million refugees; 1 million additional refugees are expected now that this conflict has begun.

Moving a little farther along to Tajikistan: 15,400 refugees; 50,000 expected there. To Uzbekistan: there are 8,800 refugees; no additional refugees expected, perhaps because of the proximity to Northern Alliance country there. Perhaps because of the fact that there may be some U.S. operations in that area. Moving on to Turkmenistan: 1,500 refugees on the ground right now; another 50,000 are expected, according to those aid workers.

And finally in Iran, where there is tremendous concern about this refugee crisis, there are 1.5 million refugees on the ground from Afghanistan, 400,000 additional. It has Iran so concerned that they are allowing U.S. food shipments to travel across Iran, something that, for the Iranian government, is a difficult thing because of -- after all, there are no diplomatic relations with the United States. After all, a few years ago we were called the great Satan by Iran.

Nevertheless, they are allowing those food shipments in, hoping to stave off additional flows of refugees into Iran.

The problem with these refugee camps is they tend to stay put. They tend to be places where disease is spread. And they also tend to be places where political opposition is formed.

Put this into perspective with the 100,000 meals dropped so far by U.S. C-17s, and the plan, ultimately, to drop 500,000 meals and you realize the U.S. food drop program is more something that would be akin to something symbolic or perhaps, depending on if you wanted to use the pejorative, you could call it propaganda. Nevertheless, there are a lot of food shipments coming in over land.

Now, one other thing I wanted to tell you about as well is this report of the sighting of some U.S. military aircraft on the ground in Pakistan. We don't know much more about it, or what the purpose is. But I'll just tell you where it is and give you a sense of this. It's in Jacobabad at the airport; it's in Central Pakistan. Jacobabad straight to the border with Afghanistan, is a little more than 100 miles over those mountains there. It's about 200 miles as the Blackhawk flies to Kandahar.

That's not to imply that that's their mission there. We don't know that for a fact. We just know that there are sightings there of helicopters on the ground at Jacobabad. That is obviously a politically sensitive issue for the Pakistanis, given their -- that tremendous refugee issue I just told you about and the close links over the years with the Taliban regime.

We want to find out more about the refugee crisis in the region, which appears to be worsening as time goes on. We invite you to check out CNN.com. We have an excellent refugee map there which tells you all the numbers I just gave you and offers a little more depth and context -- Bill.

HEMMER: Miles, thank you.

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