Afghanistan Emergency

We will be issuing a press release early this afternoon on UNHCR's updated plan of action for the Afghanistan region through mid-2002. The regional plan sets out four main areas of work both inside Afghanistan and in surrounding states. Those areas are:

• Providing protection and solutions-oriented assistance to refugees in neighbouring countries, both new arrivals and those from previous influxes.
• Maintaining emergency preparedness in neighbouring states as long as there is a potential for new displacement.
• Assisting and promoting protection and return for internally displaced people (IDPs) and other vulnerable Afghans inside Afghanistan, within a U.N. inter-agency framework.
• Preparing for the regional resumption of assisted, voluntary return of refugees.

Today, a total of 800 people were transferred from the Killi Faizo staging site at the southern Chaman border crossing in Pakistan to the nearby Roghani camp this morning, bringing the Roghani camp population to over 10,000.

We also started registering urban refugees today in Quetta - people who are willing to transfer to camps. The actual transfer is expected to start early next week to Mohammed Khele, an old refugee camp one hour from Quetta with a capacity of 30,000 people. There are already 8,000 old-caseload refugees living there.

In Peshawar, we plan to start relocating urban refugees and minorities in Jalozai to other camps next Monday. A total of 520 people moved to the new Kotkai camp today from Jalozai, bringing the Kotkai refugee population to 3,800.