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Afghan Refugees Waiting For Hope
Sunday, November 4, 2001
By Aamir Latif / IslamOnline

"For most of them, it is not a question of chronic malnutrition, or some terrible disease, but just the very debilitating effects of their journey and their displacement,'' said Liaquat Baloch, a group leader.

TORKHUM, Peshawar
A forlorn cluster of tents surrounded by rolls of barbed wire and miles of barren desert is home to dozens of refugee families that have trickled into this Pakistani border town on Oct. 8, just a day after U. S.-led forces started pounding war-ravaged Afghanistan.

The first camp of its kind set up in Pakistan by authorities, it is a way station for what may become a mass movement out of Afghanistan.

Exhausted, hungry families, and those who are sick or injured, will be able to spend a week or two here before finding shelter elsewhere.

"We are like dust blown to this place, and we will blow away again,'' said Mohammed Karim, a 40-year-old schoolteacher. He arrived with his wife and daughters from Jalalabad on Oct. 8 and is making plans to move to a Pakistani city and look for work.

His mention of dust was apt. In even a short stay in the camp, it is an inescapable presence.
(More: Islam-Online.net News Source)
2001 © Islam Online.

Refugees in dire need of -- a Hoover vacuum cleaner...

My heart goes out to them,
Dan