World | Pakistan
Islamabad revives Afghan camps for its own people
Pakistan has reopened camps originally set up in the 1980s for Afghans who fled the Soviet occupation to provide shelter for those made homeless by offensives against Islamist militants on its northwest border.
- Reuters
- Published: 00:04 November 24, 2008
- A displaced Pakistani family sits in front of their tent in Kachagari camp last week.
- Image Credit: Reuters
Kachagari: Pakistan has reopened camps originally set up in the 1980s for Afghans who fled the Soviet occupation to provide shelter for those made homeless by offensives against Islamist militants on its northwest border.
"I never thought I would become a refugee in my own country. Never ever," Gulam Ahmad said at Kachagari camp on the outskirts of the city of Peshawar.
Ahmad said he could only hope it was a bad dream as he sat atop a pile of blankets grabbed from relief workers for his family of eight.
A few years back, authorities began dismantling camps in and around Peshawar in a bid to persuade the Afghans to go home.
Peshawar had been a focal point for Muslim volunteers for the guerrilla war, covertly funded by the United States, to drive the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan.
But the refugee camps later served as breeding grounds for Islamist militants who joined the Taliban and other groups to keep the cycle of violence spinning in Afghanistan. But in recent years the conflict zone has spread to Pakistan's tribal lands.
Kachagari, near the Khyber tribal region, was closed for Afghan refugees last year.
Bulldozers destroyed the mud-walled homes the Afghans had built to replace the original tents.
Today in Kachagari, more than 1,700 tents, each meant for a family of six, have been pitched in the dusty earth among the ruins of the deserted Afghan homes.
Reopened
The camp was only reopened on September 28 and it now hosts more than 11,000 people, mostly from the Bajaur tribal region where a military offensive began in August to clear out Taliban, Al Qaida and other militant groups.
The military says more than 1,500 militants have been killed while 73 soldiers have also died in fighting in Bajaur since August, though no independent verification of casualties is available.
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