UN helpless over Afghan ban

Afghan refugees are being turned back at the border

The United Nations says it has reached deadlock in its attempts to persuade Pakistan to reopen its borders to Afghan refugees.

The representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Pakistan says he finds it difficult to see how the decision can be reversed in the future.

Last week, Pakistan announced it was closing its borders to the Afghans, citing economic and security concerns.

More than a million Afghan refugees are currently housed in camps in Pakistan.

Desperate

In the past few months, some 30,000 poor Afghans have crossed into Pakistan, to escape the ongoing war as well as a devastating drought.

The UN is attempting to highlight the plight of the refugees and says keeping the border shut will worsen the plight of the Afghans.

More than a million Afghan refugees are in Pakistan

"If people are forced to leave their homes to survive, they have the right to decide where their best chance for survival rests," the UN co-ordinator for Afghanistan, Erick de Mul, said in a statement.

The UN has also called upon Tajikistan to open its borders, which were sealed two months ago to the refugees.

"Tajikistan is a party to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, and the closure of its borders with Afghanistan violates its obligations under the treaty," Mr de Mul's statement said.

Seeping through

The BBC's Islamabad correspondent, Susannah Price, says the decision by the Pakistani authorities to close the border received widespread support in the local media.

But our correspondent adds that although the official crossing points are now closed, refugees are still entering through the porous border.

This means they are likely to end up in urban areas rather than refugee camps, making distribution of food and medical supplies difficult.