Under open skies: For Afghan refugees, home is where the heart is
Some of these refugees have been born and bred in these camps.
AZAKHEL:
For the past three decades, Afghan refugees have been trying to adjust to living in Pakistan. Though the conditions at the refugee camps have not always been hospitable, the refugees learnt in time how to get by. This summer’s super flood, however, uprooted the Afghan refugees who had come to treat Pakistan as home.
Against harsh winter and other ravages of nature, they continue to battle for survival and believe they are being ignored yet they want to stay in Pakistan.
Kamran, 28, who was born in the camp, says he has no intention to move back to Afghanistan due to the precarious security situation in his homeland. “Although we have nothing here, we are happy in Pakistan and do not want to go back,” he said.
“The Americans have sent so much aid. But God alone knows where it has gone as we have got nothing so far,” says Garan Bibi, an elderly woman. She shares a tent with her sons and husband, a sign of luck compared to many others in the area who have neither shelter nor family.
Yasmeen, 9, is one such child. Her family seems to have been hit by calamity, one after another. Last year, Yasmeen’s father lost both his legs in a traffic accident and, earlier this year, her seven-year-old sister Zar Bibi was severely injured when a military truck hit her. The military sent their family two bags of flour as compensation.
In the summer, Zar Bibi contracted a flesh infection and believes winter is a blessing. But for her sister Yasmeen, the biting cold is of grave concern.
Yasmeen, who is enrolled in a tent school of the refugee camp, said, “It gets very cold inside the tents at night and I cannot sleep.”
The only luxury still available to these people is the firewood from their destroyed homes in Azakhel camp, which wasn’t a makeshift camp and almost all refugees had proper homes.
Their homes were washed away in the floods, and now the authorities have stopped them from rebuilding these homes. The solution that the authorities have given them is to relocate. “The authorities are asking us to shift to Jalozai or Shamshtu refugee camps, but we cannot leave this place,” said Hayatullah, a resident of Lughman province in Afghanistan.
Habiba, a homemaker, says that they would have preferred renting a home but it was beyond their means. “I have 10 children and my husband, who works as a day-labourer, is the sole breadwinner for our family,” she said. “We keep vigil all night like dogs.”
Published in The Express Tribune, December 5th, 2010.
For the past three decades, Afghan refugees have been trying to adjust to living in Pakistan. Though the conditions at the refugee camps have not always been hospitable, the refugees learnt in time how to get by. This summer’s super flood, however, uprooted the Afghan refugees who had come to treat Pakistan as home.
Against harsh winter and other ravages of nature, they continue to battle for survival and believe they are being ignored yet they want to stay in Pakistan.
Kamran, 28, who was born in the camp, says he has no intention to move back to Afghanistan due to the precarious security situation in his homeland. “Although we have nothing here, we are happy in Pakistan and do not want to go back,” he said.
“The Americans have sent so much aid. But God alone knows where it has gone as we have got nothing so far,” says Garan Bibi, an elderly woman. She shares a tent with her sons and husband, a sign of luck compared to many others in the area who have neither shelter nor family.
Yasmeen, 9, is one such child. Her family seems to have been hit by calamity, one after another. Last year, Yasmeen’s father lost both his legs in a traffic accident and, earlier this year, her seven-year-old sister Zar Bibi was severely injured when a military truck hit her. The military sent their family two bags of flour as compensation.
In the summer, Zar Bibi contracted a flesh infection and believes winter is a blessing. But for her sister Yasmeen, the biting cold is of grave concern.
Yasmeen, who is enrolled in a tent school of the refugee camp, said, “It gets very cold inside the tents at night and I cannot sleep.”
The only luxury still available to these people is the firewood from their destroyed homes in Azakhel camp, which wasn’t a makeshift camp and almost all refugees had proper homes.
Their homes were washed away in the floods, and now the authorities have stopped them from rebuilding these homes. The solution that the authorities have given them is to relocate. “The authorities are asking us to shift to Jalozai or Shamshtu refugee camps, but we cannot leave this place,” said Hayatullah, a resident of Lughman province in Afghanistan.
Habiba, a homemaker, says that they would have preferred renting a home but it was beyond their means. “I have 10 children and my husband, who works as a day-labourer, is the sole breadwinner for our family,” she said. “We keep vigil all night like dogs.”
Published in The Express Tribune, December 5th, 2010.