Afghan refugees freeze to death

Years of conflict have affected young Afghans

By Kylie Morris BBC correspondent in Kabul

The United Nations is conducting an urgent review of winter aid for Afghanistan after the deaths of 10 children in a refugee camp.

Nine were babies under the age of two.

Hundreds of thousands of refugees live in camps

The children died when temperatures unexpectedly dropped to -15C, in a part of Afghanistan where it is rarely so cold.

Now, the UN is delivering 160,000 blankets to families living in camps for displaced people, around the south-eastern town of Spinboldak.

A health consultant who interviewed the families of the dead children said they had not been ill before that night but had simply died of cold.

There are as many as 400,000 Afghans in the country's south, gathered in camps close to the border with Pakistan.

Winter aid

Many have chosen to endure the winter in the camps rather than travel back to uncertain living conditions inside Afghanistan.

The United Nations has already distributed tents, blankets and plastic sheeting to more than two million Afghans to try to help them survive the winter.

But demand is outstripping supply.

A senior UN official in Kabul, Nigel Fisher, says a quick review is now underway together with the Afghan government to ascertain exactly what more is needed.

And then he predicted donors would be called upon to give more aid to get the country through what is promising to be another harsh winter.