Afghans fleeing Pakistan lack water, food and shelter, aid groups say

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Her father urged the international community to help.

“We cannot ask the Taliban government,” he said. “They have nothing because they are yet to be recognized as a government. There are families who have nothing here, no land, no home. They are just living under the open sky. No one is helping.”

Thamindri Da Silva, from the relief and development organization World Vision International, said most people are moved to a dry riverbed once they have gone through their initial registration and processing at a transit center.

People enter Afghanistan with just the clothes on their back because their watches, jewellery and cash were taken at the Pakistani border, she added.

Arshad Malik, country director for Save the Children, said many of those returning are coming back without education documents, making it difficult for them to continue their learning, as well as lacking the local Afghan languages of Dari and Pashto because they studied Urdu and English in Pakistan.

He warned that child labor in Afghanistan as well as their involvement in smuggling are likely to increase due to poverty as most returning families were among the poorest migrants in Pakistan.

“Smuggling at Torkham by children was one of the concerns from the past, so the involvement of children in smuggling and illegal goods transfer will increase,” Malik said.

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