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CNN Saturday Morning News

Afghan Refugee Crisis Builds in Pakistan

Aired September 29, 2001 - 08:22   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.
JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: As the military buildup continues overseas, a mounting refugee crisis as well.

We want to turn now to our CNN senior Asia correspondent, Mike Chinoy, who joins us this morning from Peshawar, Pakistan.

Mike, I interviewed a guest the other day from the United Nations who said they were sending in tents, food, medical supplies. Tell us the scene on the ground as the world prepares for what this gentleman said would be a devastating refugee crisis.

MIKE CHINOY, CNN SENIOR ASIA CORRESPONDENT: Hello, John.

Well, the crisis is, indeed, a devastating one and at the moment it is unfolding more inside Afghanistan than here in Pakistan. A few hours ago the first aid convoy to head for Afghanistan since the events of September 11 left from here in Peshawar. It was a convoy organized by UNICEF. Nearly a couple of dozen trucks loaded with 200 metric tons of food, tents, blankets and other emergency supplies heading up into the rugged mountain passes of northern Pakistan.

There all those supplies will be taken off the trucks and put onto hundreds, perhaps thousands of donkeys and horses, and then they will be taken down into the northern Afghan province of Badikshan (ph). An aid worker who was in Badikshan three weeks ago said conditions there are so bad, and this was before the events of September 11, that desperate people were taking dry blades of grass and boiling it for food. There's simply nothing else to eat.

The Northern Alliance controls this part of Afghanistan and has guaranteed safe passage to this UNICEF convoy. The U.N. is still trying to work out arrangements to send food into the Taliban controlled areas of Afghanistan. There are hopes that a convoy will head from here and reach Kabul in a couple of days with the Taliban authorities then responsible for distribution. Aid agencies hope that if this works, the Taliban will begin to allow more aid shipments in. The Taliban has effectively shut down most of the operations of international aid agencies, contributing to what people are describing as a humanitarian crisis of devastating, catastrophic proportions.

KING: So, Mike, any access at all to aid workers and have the Taliban shut everything down in their part of the country? And as you answer the question, what is the sense, how many people are coming out? Is there anyone keeping count of that? CHINOY: On the first question, some scattered communications with some aid organizations who are struggling to keep their operations going. The local staff of many international aid agencies stayed on in Afghanistan and even though communications have been very badly hit, to the best of the knowledge of the aid agencies here, their Afghan colleagues are struggling to do what they can. But with minimal supplies, there is real concern. The World Food Program was talking about supplies of basic essentials in many areas running out altogether in the next couple of weeks.

In terms of people coming across the border, certainly several tens of thousands have come across, particularly in the southern border area near the Pakistani city of Quetta. But also we're getting people coming through the mountain passes here bypassing Pakistani government checkpoints. The problem here is that the Pakistani authorities, who already play host to over two million Afghans, don't want anymore and they have been very, very tough in their negotiations with the aid agencies.

We're expecting to hear shortly from a team of aid workers who went out on a scouting expedition the last couple of days looking for sites in this particular northwestern corner of Pakistan for what may be 100 camps where refugees will be housed if they come across. But for now, the worse danger still is inside Afghanistan, with large numbers of people on the move, without shelter, without food, without water, without medical care -- John.

KING: And, Mike, while you were speaking we were showing some pictures of some of those camps, people living in very crude tents, children in those camps. Is this mainly a food problem or are there serious medical problems, as well?

CHINOY: It's a problem on every level. The people who get here to Pakistan are arriving in a desperately poor country that is ill equipped to look after them. Many of them are in terrible shape having gone many days on the road in really, really horrible conditions. The aid agencies are trying to gear up as best they can. As I say, there's been a lot of tension.

For example, here in this part of Pakistan, there are some half empty camps where Afghan refugees were housed during the height of the Soviet invasion. The aid agencies want to use those camps, which already have an existing infrastructure of water and shelter. But they're quite near to the center of the main city, Peshawar. The Pakistanis don't want them there and they are insisting that people who do come across be kept far away, in rugged, remote areas on the border where there is no infrastructure, no facilities, and that is going to make the job of caring for these desperate people that much more difficult.

KING: Mike Chinoy, our senior Asia correspondent, joining us this morning from Peshawar, Pakistan. Thank you for that report, Mike.

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