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Afghan refugees show little interest in returning home

Afghan refugees in camps in southwestern Afghanistan are showing little enthusiasm at the prospect of returning home despite the liberation of large parts of their country.

"In the last 20 years, I have sold my whole belongings at least three times. My family and I have no longer the strength to be chased away again if it doesn't work out this time either," said Mohammad Naaim, a 46-year-old war refugee from Kandahar.

Although the military victories of the Northern Alliance in recent days are the top issue at the camps in Dust-Mohammad in Nimruz province, there is scant sign of hope among the refugees.

"Can the Rabbanis [supporters of President Burhaneddin Rabbani within the Northern Alliance] assure us that it will not again come to a civil war," Naaim, a peasant in a suburb of Kandahar, asked.

Naaim, his pregnant wife, six children, parents and parents-in-law, needed almost two weeks to reach Dust-Mohammad as they dodged the "American Bombards", the Dari term for the US bombings.

They had only just reached Dust-Mohammad when Naaim's wife gave birth to a baby girl which was delivered with the help of doctors of the Medicine Sans Frontier organization stationed in the camp.

"I am so starved that I have not even milk for my baby," said Zahra, 36. In sheer despair the devout Moslem bared her dried-up breasts.

The mood among the other 20,000 refugees in the camp -- whose capacity is only 6,000,leaving the rest to live in dust and sand -- was also reserved.

"We are not only unwanted in the world but also in our country. What have we done to be so unwanted?" asked Shah-Bibi, a 70-year-old woman from Kandahar.

"And even God doesn't want me, otherwise I would already be dead and not forced to see all this misery," added Shah-Bibi, who, like many others, sold all her belongings to flee the war.

The agony of not being wanted reflects itself also in the paucity of international donations. Humanitarian organizations in the area call it "meager." State-provided relief aid is by no means certain to reach the right people since no one office is coordinating matters under the current chaotic circumstances in Afghanistan.

"The Afghans are not shedding tears and without tears there is no money," Peter Bykowski of the German aid organization THW commented on the situation.

In neighboring Iran, where more than two million Afghan refugees have already sought shelter in the last two decades, the interest in refugees is minimal.

"We have already fulfilled our duty, now it's the turn of others," said Danial Molaie of the governor office of the border province Sistan-Baluchestan.

Unemployment, drug trafficking and the high incidence of other crimes attributed to the refugees have not left much sympathy for Afghans. The people are not concerned for but rather because of the Afghans, was how reporter Reza Bawafa in the provincial capital Zahedan summed up the local mood.
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