ARC Starts Operations in Pakistan to Help Afghan Refugees Return Home

American Refugee Committee
Thursday, 16 May 2002

Health workers perform 900 vaccinations in one day

The American Refugee Committee has launched a program in Pakistan to help Afghan refugees return to their homeland in good health.

ARC, a Minneapolis-based humanitarian organization, on May 15 began offering health checks and vaccinations to refugees at a "voluntary repatriation center" (VRC) outside of Quetta, a city in the southwestern province of Balochistan.

Today, on the second day of operation, ARC health workers gave measles and polio vaccinations to 900 children and treated 432 people in an outpatient clinic, reported Louise Paterson, ARC's Interim Central Asia Regional Coordinator.

The refugees at the Quetta VRC, a former warehouse, are on their way back to the Kandahar region of Afghanistan. Some 400,000 Afghan refugees who have fled to Pakistan to escape war, civil unrest, famine and drought over the past 20 years have indicated they are now ready to go home.

"We are pleased that we are now working on the ground to help extremely vulnerable people in one of the world's most difficult operating environments," said ARC President Hugh Parmer. "The conditions there are far worse than those described in a book about dislocated families that has touched many Americans -- John Steinbeck's 'The Grapes of Wrath,'" he added.

The refugees who are showing up are "really poor, desperate people," Paterson said. "They are coming in huge trucks, with all of their belongings in the back, sometimes 20 kids, women in burkas, sitting on top of the luggage."

Some want to go back to Afghanistan to claim their land. Others are not sure what they will find in their war-torn homeland. "But life here is miserable, so they might as well be miserable on the other side," she said. "They want to get going."

ARC has hired 12 health workers to operate an outpatient clinic and perform the vaccinations. Paterson said children are suffering from upper respiratory tract infections, diarrhea, malnutrition, pneumonia and eye and ear infections. Adults complain of fever, chest infections, pneumonia and tuberculosis. Many of the patients are pregnant women.

ARC will perform the health checks for a period of eight months under a grant from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. ARC is also seeking funding for a larger program aimed at treating tuberculosis and preventing HIV/AIDS among Afghan refugees - both in Pakistan and after they return to Afghanistan.

ARC has also formed a coalition with the International Development Division of Minnesota agricultural cooperative Land O'Lakes and three other groups to help the Afghan people rebuild their country. The coalition has drawn up a proposal for projects to improve health and nutrition, revitalize agricultural production and restore livelihoods in Afghanistan.

For more information, or to contact American Refugee Committee, see their website at: www.archq.org