IRIN
AFGHANISTAN: UNHCR  battling to help returnees with water
16 August 2004


[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

KABUL, 16 August (IRIN) - The office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Afghanistan is working to alleviate
water problems experienced by Afghan returnees by constructing thousands
of water points and household latrines. While over 3.6 million refugees
have returned over the past two years, lack of clean water remains a huge
problem for most returnees.

"Afghan refugees returning to their homes after years of war require not
just peace and employment but also water which is very scarce in
Afghanistan," Nader Farhad, a spokesman for UNHCR, told IRIN in Kabul.
Having access to water sanitation, public clinics and shelter was the
pressing need of not only returnees, but also millions of other Afghans,
he added.

According to Farhad, the UN refugee agency has constructed or repaired
over 6,200 water points, 3,750 household latrines and 3,650 since 2002 in
areas where large numbers of Afghans have returned to. UNHCR also plans to
construct another 2,036 water points and 2,000 household latrines by the
end of 2004. Among the planned figures, the Afghan Ministry of Rural
Rehabilitation and Development, in close co-operation with UNHCR, will
make available 1,250 water points and 2,000 household latrines with donor
money.

Each water point would be constructed for 25 families, providing access to
clean water for around a quarter of a million people.

Several years of drought and the return of more than three million
refugees from Pakistan and Iran, including more than 440,000 internally
displaced Afghans, returning to their homes especially in rural areas,
have made the problem more acute.

"In the past we were growing wheat to solve our economic problems, but now
we cannot even grow vegetables because of drought." Ghulam Shah, a farmer
who had returned with his family after years abroad, told IRIN. If his
family could be provided with drinking water from a pump near their house,
then this one improvement would solve so many problems., he added.

Nader said UNHCR had helped returnees to clear many underground "kareze"
channels. These water supply gulleys in most cases were blocked, not just
by soil accumulation over years of neglect, but by walls that had
collapsed - the former Taliban rulers would often destroy them in order to
depopulate contested parts of the country, particularly in the north.

The UN refugee agency has allocated more than US $15 million for water
projects (drinking and irrigation water) in Afghanistan since it launched
a programme in 2002 to assist refugees who wanted to return.

At least another 2,000 wells have been planned by other operational
partners, although this would not be sufficient to cover the water needs
of all returnees this year, UNHCR pointed out.


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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2004


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