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Central Asia
IRIN-CA Weekly Round-up 17
27 July - 2 August 2001


CONTENTS:

AFGHANISTAN: Pakistan to cooperate with UN sanctions
AFGHANISTAN: WHO confirms cholera outbreak
PAKISTAN: UN and government sign screening agreement
PAKISTAN: WHO warns of cholera outbreak after heavy rains
PAKISTAN: WFP begins to assist flood victims
PAKISTAN: Top US official says situation in Jalozai "dreadful"
PAKISTAN: Final phase of voting completed
TAJIKISTAN: Afghan refugees may be moved to districts 
TAJIKISTAN: Stranded Afghans suffering from scurvy 
TAJIKISTAN: US $4.4 million ADB loan to repair water supply
TAJIKISTAN: Infectious diseases on the rise
UZBEKISTAN: Water a precious commodity in future


AFGHANISTAN: Pakistan to cooperate with sanctions

Pakistan would cooperate with UN monitoring of the arms embargo component
of the sanctions imposed on Afghanistan, a foreign ministry spokesperson
confirmed on Wednesday. "As a member of the United Nations, Pakistan is
supposed to carry out the resolution, and we will do it in good faith,"
the spokesperson told IRIN. As the result of a unanimous vote by the UN
Security Council on Monday, a team of 20 experts was approved to monitor
the embargo, 15 members of which will be stationed in countries
neighbouring Afghanistan.

However, there has been scepticism over whether the team will be able to
work effectively. Even with full cooperation from Pakistan, monitoring
will depend on local security forces. "Members of the local security teams
will have sympathies with neighbouring countries, and border guards could
turn a blind eye to the flow of weapons," the chairman of the department
for defence and strategic studies at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad,
Rifat Hussain, told IRIN. [For full report see IRIN separate report
entitled "AFGHANISTAN: Pakistan to cooperate with UN sanctions monitors"]

AFGHANISTAN: WHO confirms cholera outbreak

The WHO confirmed a cholera outbreak this week, reporting a total of 4,499
cases, including 114 deaths in July. The main concentration of people
infected was reported to be in the northern provinces of Balkh and Konduz,
the northeastern province of Badakhshan, and in the southern region of the
war-torn country. The World Health Organisation (WHO) is assisting the
Afghan health ministry in coordinating response to the outbreak, and has
already sent two missions to the area to distribute medical supplies.

PAKISTAN: UN and government sign screening agreement

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
and the Pakistani government have signed a landmark agreement to establish
a joint screening process for Afghan refugees living in the country's
North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), a UNHCR spokesman confirmed on
Thursday.  "This is a major breakthrough. Those who are screened will have
the legal right to stay, giving them rights that no Afghan [in Pakistan]
has at the moment," Yusuf Hassan, the UNHCR spokesman in Islamabad, told
IRIN. A three-week preliminary screening of Afghan residents aimed at
gathering information for the interview process would start in mid-August,
he added.

Those found in need of protection will be allowed to stay in Pakistan and
relocated. Cases rejected will have a right to appeal, while refugees who
opt to go home will receive a voluntary repatriation grant, including 150
kg of wheat flour and the equivalent of US $100 cash, to facilitate
resettlement. Under the agreement, a total of 30 staff from UNHCR and the
Pakistani authorities will screen refugees in Jalozai and Nasir Bagh in
the NWFP. Within three weeks of starting, the team will be increased to 55
and will eventually also cover the new Shamshatoo refugee camp, also in
the NWFP. An estimated total of 180,000 Afghans are said to be living in
the three settlements located in and around the provincial capital,
Peshawar.

PAKISTAN: WHO warns of cholera outbreak after heavy rains

Health officials in Islamabad have warned of a cholera outbreak in
Rawalpindi, twin city of the capital, following torrential rains which
pounded parts of central and northern Pakistan last week. While unable to
confirm the number of suspected cases, a WHO official said there was "huge
potential" for an outbreak. The rains, the heaviest in Pakistan this
century, are believed to have contaminated drinking water in Rawalpindi,
which authorities are now trying to rectify by increasing the levels of
chlorine. Water samples are being taken to determine how badly supplies
have been affected. The WHO official also warned of an increase in
hepatitis cases and possible cases of anthrax, as carcasses were left on
the roadsides as a result of the flooding. [For more information see:  
http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/asia/countrystories/pakistan/20010727.phtml]

PAKISTAN: WFP begins to assist flood victims

WFP have begun distributing 12 mt of food over the weekend to victims of
last week's devastating floods in northwestern Pakistan in which at least
200 people were killed, the agency said on Monday. "We wanted to provide
aid as quickly as possible to help alleviate the suffering," WFP's
regional public affairs spokesman, Khaled Mansour, told IRIN. Along with
other donations from local and international NGOs, WFP has put aside seven
and a half metric tonnes of wheat flour and four and a half metric tonnes
of cooking oil for residents in the worst-affected Mansehra District in
the NWFP. "The food should last around a month," Mansour said. The floods
took place downstream from the country's two main reservoirs, thereby
precluding any chance of water being harvested to mitigate the continuing
drought in parts of the country. [For full report go to:
http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/asia/countrystories/pakistan/20010730.phtml]

PAKISTAN: Top US official says situation in Jalozai "dreadful"

US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Christina Rocca described
the situation obtaining at the makeshift Afghan refugee camp of Jalozai in
Pakistan's NWFP as "dreadful", after visiting it on Wednesday. Rocca spent
just a few minutes at the site, near the provincial capital Peshawar. The
BBC quoted refugees as saying she had barely spoken to any of them. The
settlement houses around 50,000 refugees who have fled from the ongoing
civil war and severe drought in neighbouring Afghanistan. During her stay
in Pakistan, Rocca is also expected to meet Taliban officials. She arrived
in the country on Monday on the final leg of a three-nation tour of the
region, which included India and Nepal.

PAKISTAN: Final phase of voting completed

The last phase of voting in local elections in Pakistan went "smoothly and
without any problems," the joint secretary and spokesman of Pakistan's
election commission, Kanwar Mohammed Dilshad, told IRIN on Thursday. He
said polling would take place in the country's remaining 11 districts - 10
of them in the NWFP and one in the southern province of Baluchistan. A new
local government system to replace the old British colonial type
administration will be put in place on 14 August, to coincide with
Pakistan's independence anniversary. The election is part of the
government's devolution of power plan following the seizure of power in a
bloodless coup by the military leader and now president, Pervez Musharraf,
in October 1999. He publicly pledged to hold national elections within the
next two years as part of his plan to restore democracy in the country.

TAJIKISTAN: Afghan refugees may be moved to districts

Afghan refugees living mainly in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, are waiting
to see whether a Tajik resolution ordering their relocation to rural areas
by 31 July will be enforced by the local authorities. Although living
under considerably better conditions than most of their counterparts in
Pakistan or Iran, some 4,700 Afghan refugees may be asked to leave
Dushanbe and the northern city of Khojend on the grounds of security. The
chairman of the Afghan Refugees' Committee, Muhammad Aziz, told IRIN that
the unexpected resolution passed in July last year had raised concerns
among the Afghan community.

Aziz said the Dushanbe authorities wanted to remove Afghan refugees to
rural districts without first having made arrangements for their safety or
basic living conditions. "If all issues of safety, nutrition, medical
services are solved, then we are ready to leave for these districts.
Otherwise, it will be tantamount to suicide," he said. The head of UNHCR
in Tajikistan, Taslimur Rahman, told IRIN that it had "not yet been
possible to establish a proper dialogue with the authorities on the
issue". Meanwhile, the deputy chairman of the Dushanbe mayor's office,
Khudoiqul Hamroqulov, said the office was preoccupied with other business,
and that the issue of Afghan refugees had been deferred.

TAJIKISTAN: Stranded Afghans suffering from scurvy

Most of the Afghan refugees stranded on flood plains of the Pyandzh river
along the Tajik-Afghan border have symptoms of anaemia and scurvy due to a
vitamin C deficiency, the British NGO Merlin confirmed on Monday. "Our
immediate concern is the lack of nutrition these people are getting,"
Merlin's country director for Tajikistan, Paul Handley, told IRIN. Handley
said the findings were made after a Merlin medical team treated 279
Afghans in early July. He explained that the immediate need was to make
available appropriate foods such as fruit and vegetables to the refugees,
particularly the children.

An estimated 12,000 Afghans fled their homeland to seek shelter on the
flood plains, and they have been there for around nine months. The British
NGO has already sent in half a million vitamin C tablets to help reduce
cases of scurvy, but Handley has appealed for more aid from the
international community. He warned that the refugees had already braved
one winter, and were set to stay for another. "We need to remind people
that these Afghans are still stuck there and they need help," he added.
[For further details see:
http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/asia/countrystories/tajikistan/20010730.phtml]

TAJIKISTAN: US $4.4 million ADB loan to repair water supply

A memorandum of understanding was signed on Monday between the Asia
Development Bank (ADB) and the Tajik government over the allocation of US
$4.4 million to rebuild the water supply facility in Yavan District, about
40 km south of Dushanbe, after it was damaged by an earthquake in May. The
ADB representative in Dushanbe, Oksana Nazmieva, told IRIN on Thursday
that, despite measuring only four on the Richter scale, the earthquake had
cracked a main siphoning channel, which cut the water supply to 43,000
inhabitants and 11,000 hectares of irrigated land downstream in the
southern Khatlon District.

"This is just emergency assistance, and not part of ADB's normal programme
this year," she said. The ADB had responded to an appeal by the Tajik
President Emomali Rahmonov, who had asked for international help to
restore the water supply in Yavan. Nazmieva said the bank's main
programme, totalling US $35 million, was focused on promoting agricultural
rehabilitation, including the repair of irrigation and water supply
systems in two regions.

TAJIKISTAN: Infectious diseases on the rise

The impact of the civil war and a steady decline in Tajikistan's
infrastructure and public services since the late 1980s has led to a sharp
rise in the incidence of infectious diseases, with tuberculosis (TB) and
malaria among the most significant of these, according to health officials
in Tajikistan. TB, a disease long considered in check, was now causing
nearly 500 deaths a year, with the incidence of infection rising at the
rate of 13 percent annually, the sources said.

Meanwhile, refugees from the Tajik civil war who had returned from
Afghanistan brought back malaria, which had been virtually eradicated in
Tajikistan during the Soviet era. A WHO official told IRIN that the
disease had reached epidemic proportions, with over 16,000 infected last
year, and 200,000 people now targeted in anti-malaria campaigns. Whereas
WHO maintains that malaria can eventually be contained, the complexities
of treating TB patients will require a more sophisticated and concerted
response. [For detailed reports see:  TB:
http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/asia/countrystories/tajikistan/20010801a.phtml

MALARIA:
http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/asia/countrystories/tajikistan/20010801.phtml]

UZBEKISTAN: Water a precious commodity in future

Climatologists have warned that as a result of serious changes in the
country's climatic system, "low winter rainfall may become a regular
occurrence in the future", according to the Uzbek newspaper 'Novosti
Nedeli'. As part of the second phase of the UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change, the experts concluded that mountain glaciers and snow
cover had been degraded by a substantial rise in temperature in summer
months. The manager of the country study, Tatyana Ososkova, said
Uzbekistan's ongoing water shortage was linked to global warming caused by
the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

A UN assessment in early July found that climatic changes were only partly
to blame for the current drought and water shortages. The mission team
concluded that massive irrigation schemes and poor maintenance of
irrigation systems had contributed to the shortages, and drought
conditions were expected to continue for some years. Factors exacerbating
the drought include inadequate regional water and energy management, the
government's prioritisation of water-intensive crops, such as cotton,
increasing soil salinity and leading to low reservoir levels, which will
need steady replenishment.

Islamabad, 2 August 2001


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