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July 21, 2005

Doctors Without Borders: Visiting An Afghan Refugee Camp

Just yesterday I completed an interview with Doctors Without Borders/ Médécins Sans Frontières (MSF) and while researching their website, I found that some of the volunteers at MSF had written really interesting stories about their experiences in foreign countries. MSF gave me the permission to republish some of these stories, I think you'll find them very interesting since they shed light on the situation of the local population and the experiences of the volunteers in some of these far away places.

Visit to an Afghan Refugee Camp
By F.M. Dinshaw


Naureen Shah

Naureen Shah, a photographer who has worked on photographing women issues in muslim countries, recently undertook another challenging project. She visited the refugee camps at the Pakistan-Afghan border to bring world awareness to the plight of the people torn between politics and poverty.

Since the Afghan-Soviet war in the 1980s, Pakistan has given sanctuary to over 1.2 million Afghan refugees. Even after the Soviet troops withdrew, a devastating drought and a protracted civil war has forced Afghanis to continue pouring over the borders. Most of the refugees are housed in camps in the northwest.

Jalozai is a makeshift settlement, located in a place where you don't expect towns to bloom naturally... parched, cracked dust as far as the eye can see, and blinding afternoon light reflecting off the row after row of shiny white plastic tents. The summer temperatures frequently reach 49 degrees centigrade that make life in tents unbearable.

The squalor and harsh conditions are not conducive to optimism. A disillusioned old woman told Shah, "You're not the first to come with a camera. You take photographs to show the world, but nothing changes for us."

Many of the families earn a pittance by weaving carpets. "We don't want charity," said one woman Shah spoke to. "We want to work and live normal lives. But who is there to help us?" Another said, "Faced with a choice of death here or death back home, I wish I had died there. At least that would have been with honor."

Inroads into their self-esteem are not the only dismal consequences of the Afghani's flight from the drought in their country. Respiratory disorders caused by infected wool and aggravated by extreme temperatures and malnutrition are common as are skin infections. Another occupational hazard is permanently stooped shoulders from bending over the carpet looms. Often, young children are given drugs to keep them at their tasks all day as smaller fingers are better at knotting. Opium-based drugs also keep hunger at bay. The staple food is a rock hard ball of bread baked in a common oven, and usually it is the children's chore to queue up at the tandoor with their family's share of kneaded dough. The only schooling available is for boys only, and is limited to religious instruction. In spite of the appalling conditions, Shah says she noticed that the human spirit was not defeated. Children followed her eagerly; one little girl even played hide and seek with her.

 

On her visit to the refugee camps and Peshawar, Pakistan's border town, Shah's particular interest was meeting the Afghani women. Zubaida, a teacher by profession had fled to Pakistan because she was not allowed to work by the Taliban. She told Shah with tears in her eyes, "They [Taliban] have taken our country hostage and driven us out." Her story is not uncommon. Bibi Jan was another recent refugee who was forced to cross the border to save her three small children from starvation because she could not find work after her husband was killed in the civil war. Few of the women Shah met were interested in politics. Gul Bano said, "I don't care about Taliban or any other government. All I care about is getting food for my children and praying for peace in my country."

Her experience at the refugee camps this summer in July 2001 has taken on new meaning after the tragedy in the USA on September 11. Shah, originally from Pakistan and now settled in Canada, faces the tough predicament of protecting her two young daughters from misconception about their religion in the Western media. "As a mother and a Muslim, I want my daughters to know the Islam that I know and practice which is the Islam of peace, love and tolerance and not of hatred, intolerance and violence."

By F.M. Dinshaw
www.msf.ca


Related Articles:
Read my interview with Doctors without Borders
Doctors without Borders: Visiting an Afghan Refugee Camp
Doctors without Borders: El Salvador, after the Earthquake
Doctors without Borders: Water for Ixtahuacan
Doctors without Borders: Visiting MSF in Sierra Leone
Doctors without Borders: Lost between River and Sky
Doctors without Borders: Journey into the World of Humanitarian Aid

 

 


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