Pakistan shuts border with Afghanistan, confines refugees to camps
( 2001-09-18 10:33 ) (7 )

Pakistan virtually shut down its border with Afghanistan on Monday, halting the flow of everything but food and calling in police to implement a new order to confine Afghan refugees to dozens of camps in Pakistan.

About two dozen supply trucks were stopped at Torkham, a border town in northern Pakistan, unable to cross. On the Afghan side, thousands of refugees fleeing hunger, drought and the possibility of a US military strike also tried to cross, but were turned away.

Both Afghanistan and Pakistan have amassed new troops and weaponry along their 1,560-mile (2,500-kilometer) in anticipation of a possible US assault, officials said.

Nothing was allowed to enter Afghanistan on Monday except for a few trucks carrying food, such as wheat and flour and people with valid travel documents, said Farooq Shah, border official at Torkham, the Pakistani border town.

In New York, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said he was traveling to Washington to urge US policy makers to take into account the humanitarian consequences of any possible retaliatory attack on Afghanistan.

Rudd Lubbers told reporters after a day of meetings at UN headquarters that he hoped to meet US officials on Tuesday. He said no meetings had been scheduled, and he did not identify those he hoped to meet.

Afghans, fearing a US strike, have been lining up at a barbed wire fence at Torkham and other crossings trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to get into Pakistan.

The closure of the border was one of several requests made of Pakistan by the United States. Other requests include use of Pakistan's airspace and soil, and an exchange of intelligence material -- all in preparation for a possible retaliatory strike against Afghanistan for the deadly terrorist attacks on US soil.

Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia has harbored Osama bin Laden, the leading suspect in the US attacks, since 1996 and for that Afghanistan is considered a likely target of a US assault.

The provincial government of Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province on Sunday ordered refugees, who usually move freely, to stay within their camp limits. Officials called it a precautionary measure in the event of a US strike. On Monday, they began assembling additional police forces to implement the order gradually.

The order was intended to ensure "that the terrorists and subversive elements are strictly checked," said government officials.

Pakistan worries that those loyal to the Taliban among the refugees might turn violent if the United States uses either Pakistani airspace or soil to attack Afghanistan.

In the refugee camps, there was anger and dismay at the new orders.

"If we don't go outside the camps how will we feed our children?" asked Aziz, a 43-year-old refugee who like many Afghans uses only one name. "We are people and we are not creating any problems for Pakistan."

Abdullah Jan, a 56-year-old refugee from Kabul and a father of six, said Pakistan has nothing to fear from the Afghan refugees.

"We have nothing to do with terrorism or terrorists. We are ourselves victims of terrorism," he said.

He said he sympathizes "with the pain of the families" who lost family in the US terror attacks, but said the United States should "not do anything that would increase the suffering of innocent Afghans."

Abdullah and others said they were concerned about the departure of personnel from the United Nations refugee agency from the camps in northern Pakistan. That staff, which normally screens refugees and provides humanitarian relief, evacuated the camps after the terror attacks and has not returned.

Many residents have been fleeing Afghanistan's cities in the week following the terrorist attacks and the withdrawal of international relief workers, UN officials said on Monday.

"Reports indicate large numbers of people on the move from Kandahar, Kabul and Jalalabad," said a statement from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva.

"Kandahar -- the principal city in the south and the headquarters of the Taliban -- is reported to be half empty," the statement said.

In the past two decades, Afghanistan has endured Soviet invasion, civil war, the rise of the radical Taliban regime and widespread hunger and drought. Although no exact numbers are available, last week's terror attacks appear to have intensified Afghanistan's refugee crisis, which the United Nations says is already the world's worst.