From: Barry Stoller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: WWIII update - civilian casualties, exodus [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK] Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------------------------- BBC (with additional by Reuters). 19 October 2001. Chaos as Afghans flee bombed city. Refugees have been flooding out of Afghanistan in terror at continued US strikes. More than 3,500 Afghans poured into the border town of Chaman on Friday after fleeing heavy bombing in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. The UN said the refugees came with no food and no belongings -- and they described the situation as chaotic. "A wave of panic has swept the border," a spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees told the AFP news agency. "Our border monitors reported that about 3,500 people, mostly women and children, entered Pakistan at the Chaman border crossing Friday," UNHCR spokeswoman Fatoumata Kaba said. Intense U.S.-led military strikes on targets in and around Kandahar overnight and Friday morning appeared to have sparked panic among residents of the Taliban stronghold in southwest Afghanistan, Kaba said. It appeared to be the biggest single exodus of Afghan civilians to Pakistan since Western strikes began 13 days ago. Describing the new arrivals in Pakistan as a "sudden rush," Kaba said she believed they had been allowed to enter on humanitarian grounds -- although witnesses said a few well-aimed stones had also probably helped focus the border guards' minds. In the morning, a crowd of around 2,000 people had gathered at Chaman on the Afghan side. There was also a long queue of around 200 donkey-carts bringing scrap metal for foundries in Pakistan -- a daily routine -- stopped by the Pakistani authorities. When the crowd started throwing stones at the border post, the gates were opened and the hundreds of people pushed their way in. Among them were five families with members they said had been injured in the U.S. air raids. Nazar Muhammad, with multiple fractures in his legs and one arm, and his son Mohammad Zaman with a broken back, were the two most seriously injured. Pakistani officials say 50,000 Afghans have crossed into Pakistan since the crisis began. The UN is painting an increasingly bleak picture of the fate of the refugees. Many Afghans, they say, have not got money for food, let alone the journey to the border. New arrivals report having to pay smugglers up to $50 -- a huge sum in a country already brought to its knees by drought and war. The Pakistani Government is only allowing new refugee camps to be built in the border area, a remote and inhospitable region. Aid agencies have pleaded with the government to be allowed to build camps elsewhere. Refugee Mohammed Gul, a refugee from Kandahar told the BBC's Pashto service that he worked in a military hospital, but medicines had run out. He said: "Bombs were hitting people's houses." "They damaged lots of houses and they injured and killed lots of innocent people." "We were there and I saw about 50 people who died and some became injured." "Everyone is looking to the sky and waiting and thinking when will the American aircraft come and starting killing them." . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barry Stoller http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProletarianNews with continuing coverage of WWIII _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
