UN prepares for major Afghan crisis

Afghan refugees face closed borders

The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, is sending emergency staff to Pakistan and Iran in preparation for what it warns could become a major Afghan refugee crisis.

The move comes as tens of thousands of Afghan people flee their homes amid fears that the US will launch attacks on Afghanistan.

It's going to take very little to push that existing humanitarian crisis into really a major disaster in huge numbers on the road

UNHCR spokesman Rupert Colville

It's going to take very little to push that existing humanitarian crisis into really a major disaster in huge numbers on the road. It also follows the escape by hundreds of thousands of Afghans to Pakistan over the past year because of conflict.

The agency says the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, home to the Taleban's headquarters and about 100,000 people, is now half empty as Afghans seek refuge in the countryside or attempt to cross into neighbouring Pakistan or Iran.

Existing Afghan refugees live in squalid conditions

The borders to both countries have been closed and more than 1,000 Afghans are reported to be stuck on the Afghan side of the Pakistan border crossing point.

BBC correspondent Adam Mynott, reporting from Torkham, one of the main crossing points into Pakistan at the head of the Khyber Pass in the North-West Frontier Province, said the situation was extremely tense.

Large numbers of Afghans have also fled the capital city Kabul, as well as Jalalabad in the East, although the UNHCR said the situation at Herat in the west and Mazar-i-Sharif in the north appeared to be relatively calm.