100,000 refugees have fled Afghanistan
More than 100,000 Afghans are believed to have fled to Pakistan to escape US military action despite the official closure of the border between the two countries, the UN said today.
UN High Commission for Refugees spokesman Ron Redmond said the agency was trying to persuade Pakistani authorities to allow tens of thousands of ‘‘illegal’’ arrivals to go without fear of deportation to border camps which have room for 150,000 people.
‘‘Many of these people are in need of support and assistance but are afraid to come out of the shadows for fear of being sent back to Afghanistan,’’ he said.
Pakistan is allowing in only the most vulnerable - women, children, elderly and sick - forcing other Afghans to pay huge sums to be smuggled across or to make their own way over remote mountain paths.
Redmond said the 100,000 estimate was extremely tentative given that it was impossible to keep track of the 300 plus mountain routes and that most of the new arrivals in Pakistan didn’t register.
Separately, the agency issued figures showing that the number of Afghans seeking asylum in Europe between July and the end of September rose by a massive 84% over the same period last year and 12% up on the April-June period.
Some 10,100 Afghans asked for asylum in Europe during the third quarter, mostly in Austria, Germany, Slovakia and Hungary, making a total of 34,263 for the first nine months.
The figures excluded Britain which did not submit data for August and September.
