Two camps for the internally displaced that were opened in 2007 are posing a challenge to security forces in Herat province. An investigation.
The camps called Shaidayee and Maslakh, in the west and east of Herat City, are home to more than 10,000 people displaced from provinces such as Badghis, Helmand, Ghor and Faryab. They were driven out of their homes by conflict, or a prolonged drought that emptied many villages.
Now officials are blaming brazen attacks on security agencies on criminal elements in these camps. IEDs planted on the road running between Maslakh and Shaidayee have killed and injured many security personnel. There is a growing demand that the camps be disbanded.
General Amirshah Sadat, former head of the National Security Department in Herat, called them a threat and warned of a “social crisis” if they were not shifted or shut.
Killid interviewed Abdul Rauf Ahmadi, the spokesperson for Herat Police, who said police have confiscated weapons and explosives during search operations in the camps. Herat Police was working on registering the IDPs in coordination with the provincial department of refugees and returnees to prevent infiltration by outsiders, he said.
Twenty IDPs from the two camps, and Herat Minarets camp were convicted after investigation by the Attorney General’s Office, according to Gul Ahmad Ramesh, the head of its appeal department. He felt this has served as a deterrent.
Tackle the frustration
Abdullah and Abdul Samea are two refugees from Ghor. They complained about the lack of facilities in the camp, and confirmed that some IDPs have joined armed opponents of the government because of economic problems. However, both men said that were the government to provide them with an alternative they would move out of the camps.
Qari Bismillah from Faryab province is the representative of people from his province in the Maslakh camp. He confirmed that some camp inmates were linked to armed groups. According to him, the armed groups distributed weapons to IDPs who used it to target military vehicles.
Bismillah urged the government to find jobs for people because unemployment was a major problem, and source of a great deal of frustration in the camps.
The department of refugees and returnees, Herat, has also blamed IDPs for some of the recent incidents of violence in the province. Head of the department Ahmad Ehsan Sarwaryar claimed there were people who were in the camps only to take handouts from domestic and foreign non-governmental organisations (NGOs). According to him, some people are constructing houses in Herat City with money given to them in the camps.
He said the department was planning to separate the genuinely needy inmates from those who were there merely for what they could get. The IDPs in Maslakh and Shaidayee would be resettled in their home provinces with the help of UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and IOM, he added. Meanwhile, UNHCR spokesperson Nader Farhad said they were trying to deliver more aid to the roughly 670,000 IDPs.
Blame game
Provincial authorities are blaming the situation on the former head of the department of refugees and returnees, Hamidullah Khatibi. Herat Governor Sayed Fazlullah Wahidi said the head was dismissed for inefficiency and dereliction of duty. According to him, the new head, Sarwaryar, and he were “trying to shift” the IDPs back to their “original” provinces. The previous head’s failure to take decisive action forced donors to cut back or stop aid for the last four years, which has created a “big problem”, Sarwaryar told Killid.
Khatibi did not agree to speak to Killid.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Refugees and Returnees said it has sent a delegation to Herat to investigate the allegations against the former head of the department of refugees and returnees. The spokesperson Eslamudin Jurat said there were criminal elements among the IDPs, and the camps need to be broken up, and people shifted back to their provinces.
Sayed Abdul Qader Rahimi, head of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) in the west said IDPs were insecure, deprived of health services, proper nourishment and education for their children.
Afghan refugees who are deported from Iran are sent to the camps for IDPs. According to Sarwaryar, the Iranian government has sent back 65,000 Afghans, mainly children. He said 25,000 had returned voluntarily.
Sarwaryar said the department of refugees and returnees bring those who are forcibly sent back to the country to camps in cities. Authorities are mulling over a plan to hold a meeting together with UNHCR and Iranian authorities to discuss among other issues the behaviour of Iranian police with the refugees. Refugees are beaten and insulted, said Ahmad Jawed who had lived in Iran for a year and was deported.
Zahra who was forced to leave had lived in Mehman Shahr, a camp in Mashhad City. She said Iranian authorities took away her residence card before deporting her.
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