500,000 Afghans could flee across borders: UN

• WHO hopes for air bridge into northern Afghanistan in days

Up to half a million Afghans could flee their homeland by year-end, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said yesterday, appealing to all neighbouring countries to keep their borders open for those seeking safety.
As a crisis unfolds in the country, a few thousand Afghans have been recorded as entering Iran daily, while traders continue going back and forth from Afghanistan to Pakistan, said Kelly Clements, deputy UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
“In terms of numbers we are preparing for around 500,000 new refugees in the region. This is a worst case scenario,” she told a Geneva news briefing. “While we have not seen large outflows of Afghans at this point, the situation inside Afghanistan has evolved more rapidly than anyone expected.”
There had been a “small uptick” in the outflow to Pakistan in the recent days, she said.
Clements stressed in particular the need to boost support for neighbouring countries that already host more than 2.2mn Afghan refugees, and which could soon see the fresh influx.
The UNHCR’s contingency planning figure of 500,000 Afghan refugees over the next four months includes departures to Iran and Pakistan and to countries of Central Asia.
She did not elaborate on what developments might trigger such a sudden increase in refugee numbers where an Islamic State (IS) attack on Thursday killed 85 people outside Kabul airport.
Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, has held talks with the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and other donors regarding financial support for the agency’s plan to shelter and care for new arrivals, she added.
People are calling an Afghan crisis helpline, reporting “executions and beatings and clampdowns on media and radio stations”, said Najeeba Wazedafost, chief executive of the Asia Pacific Refugee Network, who voiced special concern for women’s safety.
“They tell us their fear of being killed simply for being a female,” she said.
Even before the Taliban swept into power in Afghanistan nearly two weeks ago, the humanitarian situation in the country had deteriorated dramatically.
Half of the population was already in need of humanitarian assistance, and half of all children under five were estimated to be acutely malnourished.
Yesterday the UN presented a plan for UN agencies and partner NGOs to prepare for and respond to the unfolding crisis within Afghanistan and in neighbouring countries.
It urgently appealed for nearly $300mn to fund the plan.
“We are appealing to all countries neighbouring Afghanistan to keep their borders open so that those seeking safety can find safety,” Clements said.
In particular Iran and Pakistan, who together host 90% of the Afghan refugees in the region, along with some 3mn other Afghans without refugee status, “will need a lot of support”, she said.
So far, the overwhelming majority of people fleeing the surge in violence in Afghanistan have remained inside the country.
Only some 7,300 Afghans crossed into neighbouring countries seeking refugee status between January 1 and August 20, a UNHCR spokesman told AFP.
During the same period, nearly 560,000 Afghans fled within the country, joining some 2.9mn internally displaced people already registered there at the end of 2020, the agency said.
More than 80% of those displaced in 2021 have been women and children.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that medical supplies will run out within days in Afghanistan, as the UN body announced that it hopes to establish an air bridge into the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif by then, with the help of Pakistani authorities.
Trauma kits and emergency supplies for hospitals, as well as medicines for treating chronic malnutrition in children are among priority items for Afghanistan, the WHO’s regional emergency director said.
“What remains certain is that humanitarian needs are enormous and growing,” Rick Brennan told a UN briefing.
“Right now because of security concerns and several other operational considerations, Kabul airport is not going to be an option for the next week at least,” he said.
“One of the problems we have in Afghanistan right now is there is no civil aviation authority functioning, but we are working with Pakistan particularly in the context of Mazar-e-Sharif airport,” Brennan said. “Because they can work with contacts on the ground so that all the necessary steps to land an aircraft, to land a cargo aircraft, can be put in place.”
Pakistan International Airlines will provide air transport for the operation, while the WHO will arrange logistics on the ground, WHO spokesperson Inas Hamam said.
Security arrangements are still in the process of being determined.


Russian activists fined for protest in support of Afghan women
Russia has fined two activists for organising a demonstration in support of Afghan women who face an uncertain future after the Taliban returned to power in the country, a court said yesterday.
The two activists, Artemy Pityukov and Ksenia Bezdenezhnykh, were fined 200,000 roubles ($2,670) each for “violating public order”, a spokeswoman for the Presnensky district court in Moscow told AFP.
The activists took part in a small-scale demonstration on Monday outside Afghanistan’s embassy in Moscow.
They took turns holding up posters in a “solitary picket” line, one of the last forms of protest in Russia that do not need official authorisation.
Six activists were detained, according to independent monitor OVD-Info.
Another “solitary picket” took place in Russia’s second city Saint Petersburg but without arrests.
“Being a woman in Afghanistan is now deadly dangerous,” read one of the posters, according to images shared on social media.
Moscow has been cautiously optimistic about the new government in Kabul after the Taliban swept to power in Afghanistan in a military takeover earlier this month.
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said last week that the militant group – known for its severe treatment of women – “is ready to take into account” women’s rights.
In the past, the Taliban had prevented girls and women from attending school and working jobs, and required them to be accompanied by a male chaperone.
They faced corporal punishment or even execution for violating the Taliban’s laws. – AFP