U N I T E D   N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Integrated Regional Information Network for Central Asia

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Central Asia
IRIN-CA Weekly Round-up 104
22 - 28 March 2003


CONTENTS:

AFGHANISTAN: Swiss ICRC delegate murdered
AFGHANISTAN: Heavy floods affect 2,000 people in the north
AFGHANISTAN: Special report on poppy cultivation in Badakhshan
AFGHANISTAN: IOM steps up IDP returns from Herat
AFGHANISTAN: World TB Day marked
CENTRAL ASIA: Interview with OSCE Chairman Jaap de Hoop Scheffer
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap
CENTRAL ASIA: Interview with UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Bertie Ramcharan
PAKISTAN: Interview with narcotics control official
PAKISTAN: Impact of Iraq crisis
PAKISTAN: Closure of refugee village creates tough choices

AFGHANISTAN: Swiss ICRC delegate murdered

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Friday condemned
the killing of one its field delegates in the southern Afghan province of
Oruzgan, temporarily freezing all field movements in the country. The
murder, the first killing of an international ICRC staff member in the
country since 1990, is a grim reminder of the problems facing aid workers
on the ground. "This was a brutal and unacceptable act," an ICRC
spokeswoman, Annick Bouvier, told IRIN from Geneva on Friday. "We are
shocked over what has happened."

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33126&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN]

AFGHANISTAN: Heavy floods affect 2,000 people in the north

The effects of heavy rains on Sunday have caused serious flooding in
northern Afghanistan, affecting thousands of people and destroying
hundreds of homes. "Eleven people have been killed and over 2,000 people
were affected," Manoel de Almeida el Silva, a spokesman for the UN
Assistance Mission for Afghanistan (UNAMA) told IRIN in the capital Kabul
on Thursday. The flood happened on Sunday in Konduz province, damaging 474
houses, while completely destroying 168. The flood seriously impacted
Khanabad district, but also affected the surrounding districts of Chahar
Darreh, Dasht-e Archi and Aliabad.

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33108&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN]

AFGHANISTAN: Special report on poppy cultivation in Badakhshan

Standing on his farm holding a shovel and shouldering a Kalashnikov
assault rifle, Khak Nasrullah gazes over his sprouting crop of poppies on
his land, wondering how he will spend the US $24,000 he is set to earn
from the 60 kg of opium he hopes to harvest this season. "I will buy a
power generator and a strong tractor," the 42-year-old farmer told IRIN in
Argu, one of the largest poppy-growing districts in the northeastern
province of Badakhshan. Located some 75 km from Feyzabad, the former
stronghold of the Northern Alliance, in the centre of the province, Argu
has a population of 100,000. Deep within its muddy streets, its tiny
bazaar surrounded by wooden stalls has become a major dealing centre and
exchange point for hundreds of thousands of dollars each poppy season.

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33083&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN]

AFGHANISTAN: IOM steps up IDP returns from Herat

With the return of some 1,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) from
displacement camps in the western Afghan city of Herat to the neighbouring
northwestern province of Badghis, the International Organisation for
Migration (IOM) is stepping up its efforts to return thousands of
displaced families to their places of origin. "Every refugee and displaced
person that returns home safely is an indication of the return of
stability," Richard Danziger, the chief of IOM's mission in Afghanistan,
told IRIN from the capital, Kabul, on Monday.

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33023&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN]

AFGHANISTAN: World TB Day marked

Afghanistan marked World Tuberculosis (TB) Day on Monday with a ceremony
in the capital, Kabul. The country has one of the highest incidences of
the disease in the world. "As a result of two decades of war, TB cases
have been rapidly increasing in Afghanistan," Dr Abdul Wudood Haidari, the
deputy manager of the Afghan health ministry's national TB programme, told
IRIN. "There are 70,000 TB cases in Afghanistan annually and only 15
percent of them are reported and treated," he said, noting that 23,000
people die of the disease each year.

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33048&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN]

CENTRAL ASIA: Interview with OSCE Chairman Jaap de Hoop Scheffer

One of the more active international organisations working in Central Asia
today is the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
The largest regional security organisation in the world today, with 55
participating states from Europe, Central Asia and North America, the OSCE
focuses on early warning, conflict prevention, crisis management and
post-conflict rehabilitation. In an exclusive interview, the OSCE head and
Netherlands foreign minister, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, shared with IRIN from
his office in The Hague, his views on some of the issues affecting Central
Asia today.

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33078&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA]

CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap

In Central Asia this week a new report from the Institute for War and
Peace Reporting (IWPR) suggests a growing number of young Uzbek women in
the central Samarkand region were abandoning their children. “In February
alone, Samarkand police found nine children who were left by their parents
in streets,” the report said. A few years ago, the vast majority of
children being brought up in orphanages and boarding schools were children
from disadvantaged families or genuine orphans. But currently, “of 3,000
children who are being brought up in Samarkand Region’s orphanages and
boarding schools, only 12 per cent are real orphans, and the rest came
from low-income families”, the web site said.


http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33132&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA

CENTRAL ASIA: Interview with UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights
Bertie Ramcharan

Recently back from a tour of Central Asia, UN Deputy High Commissioner for
Human Rights Bertie Ramcharan is only too aware of the importance of
positive engagement. The issue of human rights remains a major concern
among the five former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan, with rights groups arguing that
the issue had been sidelined as a result of the 11 September events. In an
interview with IRIN, the deputy high commissioner shared some of his
concerns for the region as a whole, also dwelling on the efforts his
office was making to bring about positive change.

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33106&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA]

PAKISTAN: Interview with narcotics control official

With over half a million heroin addicts, and renewed poppy cultivation in
parts of the country, Pakistan faces a huge drug problem despite official
claims of one of the highest interdiction rates, together with
neighbouring Iran. In a recent interview with IRIN, Muhammad Aziz Khan,
the secretary of the drugs control ministry, stressed that the government
was addressing the issue of the resurgence of poppy cultivation in the
country. He hoped that Pakistan might become poppy free as early as this
year.

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33050&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN]

PAKISTAN: Impact of Iraq crisis

With a countrywide strike call on Friday in Pakistan by a coalition of
right-wing political parties, experts and aid workers had a mixed reaction
to possible repercussions of the Iraqi crisis in Pakistan and Afghanistan.  
UN sources in Pakistan told IRIN that in terms of humanitarian assistance,
the UN would continue with the repatriation of Afghan refugees, assistance
to refugees staying back in the camps and support for drought-affected
people in remote regions of the country. Earlier in the month, the office
of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) started its repatriation
programme for this year with a planning figure of 600,000.

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33031&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN]

PAKISTAN: Closure of refugee village creates tough choices

Painda Muhammad, a 60-year-old Afghan refugee, faces one of the toughest
choices of his life. Kacha Garhi, where he lives, one of Pakistan's oldest
refugee camps in the northwestern city of Peshawar, will soon be closing.
"I don't want to leave my home here. It's beyond my means to establish
another house elsewhere," he told IRIN on Friday. But Muhammad has few
choices. He can either go back to his beleaguered country and to his land
in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar, receiving some assistance
from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR), or move to a few newly established makeshift camps in Pakistan's
Tribal Areas bordering Afghanistan, and live there on food aid.

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33124&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN]


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