Hundreds of Afghan refugees attacked a UN refugee agency office in northwest Pakistan in protest at delays in repatriating them, police and officials said yesterday.
The mob destroyed computers, iris-checking machines, furniture and a UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) vehicle in the "sudden" riot late Wednesday in Peshawar near the border with Afghanistan, office chief Yaris Khan told reporters.
Khan said police had to disperse the crowd of between 300 and 600 at the registration center, which is processing thousands of refugees who have been ordered to leave Pakistan by the middle of this month.
"They did not give us any reason," he said.
But refugee Jalat Khan, who is waiting for his papers to be processed so he can return to the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, said the attackers had come from a nearby camp at Kachha Garhi to help out those in the queue.
"They reacted because they had seen their compatriots had been waiting for travel documents in hot weather for the past several days," he said.
"Our brothers vented their anger in our support."
Refugees have arrived from different camps across Pakistan to pass through the registration center in Peshawar, where they must undergo iris validation tests to stop them coming back through the porous border with Afghanistan.
"We have decided to let all those who are already at the centre go back to their country without iris testing," the UNHCR's Khan said. "This is being done because of the unusual situation triggered by the attack."
Officials said about 1,000 Afghans left the site early yesterday and the situation was now under control. A dozen policemen guarded the site yesterday while UNHCR staff collected the damaged equipment.
Around three million Afghans still live in Pakistan. Many have lived there for years, having fled the Soviet occupation in the 1980s.
Pakistan has ordered the closure of all refugee camps in its semi-autonomous tribal regions because of security concerns. It originally gave an Aug. 31 deadline but it has since given them until Sept. 15.
In a separate incident in the tribal areas yesterday, gunmen hijacked an official van and took hostage its two occupants.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not