In Pakistan, desperate refugees on dangerous, and shifting, ground

Caught between countries and armed combatants, the displaced are in dire trouble.

BY JOEL ELLIOTT
Special to the Maine Sunday Telegram

PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN ­ The war that broke out earlier this month in Pakistan struck one more blow to the security of a refugee population in Afghanistan that already faces a severe food shortage and its own share of violence.

Tens of thousands of Pakistanis fled across the border, joining a torrent of Afghan refugees the government pushed into repatriating.

Pakistan opened fire in frontier cities along the Afghan border in an attempt to rein in a growing threat of militants. The attempted crackdown came in the wake of the devastating September bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad ­ which nearly killed Pakistan¹s newly elected president, Asif Ali Zardari ­ and may also have come in response to intense criticism from the United States.

The fighting had an immediate effect on the civilian populations of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pakistan has been ratcheting up the pressure on Afghan refugees to return to their country of origin, flooding its urban centers this year with 250,000 more impoverished, often homeless people in addition to the 5 million who have returned since 2001, according to the United Nations refugee agency.

Previous military action exacerbated the problem, driving 250,000 Pakistanis from their homes, including a telling 20,000 who fled to Afghanistan.

Afghanistan, wracked by its own war, is in no shape to support this influx, and the refugees I interviewed in June knew it. Earlier this month, Pakistan continued its pattern of blaming ­-- sometimes rightly so ­-- Afghan refugees or migrants for its security problems by beginning to deport all 50,000 believed to be living in Bajur, the Associated Press reported.

But the Afghan refugees I interviewed were no militant ideologues. Their desires were the same as those of any Pakistani or U.S. citizen: food, electricity, clean water, education and ­ perhaps most important and elusive ­ security.

Several days I spent wandering the scalding desert in and near Jalozai refugee camp gave me a glimpse of their desperation.

When I found Hameeda, a 16-year-old Afghan refugee, on a sweltering June day, she was sitting beneath a 10-ton truck hiding from the sun and sweating beneath a full-length blue burqa. She, along with almost a dozen siblings and uncles, was waiting for a few straggling family members to complete the repatriation process at a nearby United Nations refugee compound so they could begin the 90-mile journey to Jalalabad, Afghanistan, where they hoped to find the family home still standing. Their first task when they arrived would be to rebuild it ­ it had been damaged 30 years earlier in the Russian invasion, and they had not returned since fleeing to Pakistan.

That morning in Jalozai refugee camp, a mud-brick city near Peshawar that once housed more than 100,000 Afghan refugees, Hameeda had watched the demolition of the only home she'd ever known, along with the rest of her neighborhood. She'd never been to Afghanistan, and she was afraid.

"You are placing us in the mouth of war," she said, as though the Pakistani government could hear her accusation. "We are weeping at the closure of Jalozai camp, because there is nothing but dust and mud and violence where we are going."

Hameeda's family faced the task of creating a new life in a war-torn country with a mutilated infrastructure, insufficient education system and a reeling government. New refugee camps are forming, the Times reported, as refugees flowing in from Pakistan compete for space with displaced Afghans who are fleeing escalating clashes between NATO and Taliban forces.

All of this means more trouble in the region, not only for the Afghans and Pakistanis, but also for U.S. troops battling the Taliban, which is sure to exploit the desperation to turn Afghans against their government. In its campaign to improve security, the U.S. leans heavily on Pakistan's military to fight militants who launch attacks on American troops in Afghanistan, almost to the exclusion of efforts to improve governance or economic development in Pakistan, according to the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress. The investigative body also accused the Bush administration of failing to develop a government-wide plan to combat terrorism in the tribal areas.

In short, Afghanistan is in a crisis that goes beyond increasing levels of violence. Refugees like Hameeda and her family face the task of starting a new life in the worst imaginable circumstances. While the government claims that the refugees are returning "voluntarily," none of those I interviewed wanted to go. They were leaving because the government had destroyed their homes and cut off their power.

Back in Jalozai Camp, the few who remain fear the day when they, too, will be forced back into Afghanistan. They told of a miserable existence, with limited education or other resources, and begged for their words to be printed so people in the U.S. would know their situation.

"We are ignorant. We are illiterate," said Shahazada Khan, a tribal leader who blames U.S. foreign policy for much of the region's troubles. Khan stood at one end of a mud-brick room filled with young boys and village elders.

Several of the boys lamented the fact that they could not pursue their dreams because of a lack of funding for education. "With schools and education, we could develop along with the rest of the world," Shahazada Khan said.

"So don't send us guns; don't encourage us to fight," the tribal leader continued. "Send us paper. Send us pens. Send us schools. Education is a light that could illuminate our world."

Joel Elliott is a Waterville-based reporter who traveled to Pakistan in June and July, writing freelance articles on news and human rights issues for The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor and the San Francisco Chronicle. His blog from the trip is at: pakistanstories.blogspot.com. His e-mail address is: joeldelliott@gmail.com

Welcome

Hello:

This blog served as a travel diary and a way to let friends and family know we were still alive and well while traveling in Pakistan. Photographer Jodi Hilton and I traveled to many of the country's major cities on a reporting trip.

While there, we interviewed and photographed beggars, refugees, politicians, attorneys, prostitutes and artists, focusing primarily on humanitarian issues. We found most of the Pakistanis we encountered to be extremely generous and kind, although we did have a few scary incidents. We narrowly missed three bombings during our last week in the country.

Feel free to read about our adventures or take a look at more photographs at jodihilton.com. Or, click here to listen to an interview about the trip on Maine Public Broadcasting Network, or here for an interview on WCSH6 in Portland.

This blog will continue to be updated as I write more articles.

Enjoy,

Joel Elliott

Baby rescue - San Francisco Chronicle

Click to see Karachi baby rescue story as told in the Chronicle.

Karachi baby rescue

Jodi dances with orphan girls in Karachi. Click to take a look at one my favorite projects to date.

Suicide bombing in Islamabad

We were sitting down to our last dinner in Islamabad when the manager came out of his room with his cell phone in hand. "There's been a bombing," he said.

So much for dinner. Jodi went for her cameras and I got my notepad. It was very close, and we arrived about 15 minutes later - friends later told me it's best to wait 20 to avoid double blasts.

The intersection where the blast went off was a gory mess. Blood trails on the sidewalks pointed the way to its origin. The suicide bomber had targeted police officers and managed to get quite a few of them - 11 people were confirmed dead by the time I filed for The New York Times, but the total kept climbing. I think it hit at least 20 by morning.

Click here to see what Jodi and I produced for The New York Times on this blast.

Home again home again

The train ride back from Lahore was quite comfortable, aside from my having fallen deathly ill.

Anyhow, our flight leaves tomorrow for London and then Boston.

Lahore's mosques and brothels

Lahore has been enchanting and very sad. You can find anything you want in this city: art and beauty, filth and depravity.


We met a family of prostitutes that depends heavily on one of its youngest and prettiest members in order to keep its home and lifestyle. She's 17 years old, and her client list includes some of the most elite public figures in the country. Her family pushed her into prostitution when she was 12.



From the fourth-floor roof of Cooco's Den, a 300-year-old brothel that has since been converted into a restaurant, you can look into the courtyard area of the Badshahi Mosque, which is roughly the same age. Heera Mandi, Lahore's red light district, begins just outside the red gates of the mosque and extends to another, much smaller mosque several blocks away. Imams over dueling loudspeakers in the mosques blast the call to prayer five times a day while sex workers earn their living in the squalid conditions below. Iqbal Hussain, self-proclaimed son of a prostitute and owner of Cooco's Den, reflects the neighborhood's juxtaposition of holy fervor and earthly vice by mixing religious icons with his paintings of local prostitutes throughout the building.

Lahore in the morning

Kalasha women wear bright headdresses, belts and other trimming, which contrasts nicely with their black dresses. As you can see.

Today we sat tight in Islamabad, catching up on writing and processing photos. Also, shopping and getting massages.

In the morning we will take a bus to Lahore, where we will meet an artist who is by all accounts quite fascinating. He will, for example give us a tour of Lahore's red light district, which provides him with most of the subject matter for his art.

Back from the Afghan border

Ironic - I was thinking on our flights back this morning from Chitral to Peshawar and then to Islamabad that it would be downhill from here on out, since we had managed to stay safe during about a week on the Afghan border.

When we arrived at our guesthouse in Islamabad, however, management was upset because there had been an explosion near the Islamabad airport within hours of our landing and they hadn't heard from us. Then we found out that there had been a bombing in Peshawar as well.

The whole time we were in Peshawar we heard that the militants were closing in on the city. We met with refugees in the Jalozai camp, which is being shut down by the Pakistani government, rendering homeless tens of thousands of Afghan refugees. Somehow that is supposed to improve the security situation on the border.







This guy to the right is a truck driver waiting to take his cousin's family to Kabul. Prices for this trip ranged between 25,000 and 50,000 rupees. Exchange rate at this point is 65 rupees for 1 US dollar.













One truck driver thought I should try a pinch of his snuff, which is reportedly a good deal stronger than pan, which in turn is a good deal stronger than tobacco-based snuff that people chew in the US.
I've never tried it over here, but whatever is in theirs gives quite a kick. It's pretty bitter, as well. These guys thought the idea of me trying it was hilarious. I was ready to keel over anyway, it being 3 p.m. in the middle of the desert with little or no shade and nothing but coffee for breakfast. Their snuff makes you incredibly dizzy, and I'm sure it affected me more than someone who is used to it, so they all gathered round to see if I'd fall over. Happy to say I did not.









We traveled with several armed guards while in the refugee camps. The military police tried to accompany us as well, but it wasn't difficult to convince them to stay back in the shade.













A former mujehideen fighter describes the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.








From Peshawar we went to Chitral, a beautiful, airy mountain village from which we traveled to two of the three Kalash valleys. That mountain in the distance marks the Afghanistan border, 10 miles away, or a 10-hour hike.

In the Kalash valleys

We just arrived in Chitral, at the base of a series of mountain villages where the Kalasha live. The Kalasha have a unique culture and are facing pressures from the surrounding Muslim community to convert. The place is gorgeous - 12,000-foot icecapped mountains in every direction. However there is no Internet service where we are going, and we will be out in the mountains for about the next four days. We also won't have any cell phone service.

Haven't had a chance to blog lately because we spent several days in the Afghan refugee camps right on the Afghan border. Peshawar was our base of operations for that, which was a little nerve-wracking, because the place is crawling with terrorists, according to about any news source I see. But we made it out.

The highlight of the trip to the Jalozai camp was interviewing a 67-year-old mujahideen freedom fighter who helped stop the Soviets in Afghanistan. He trained jihadi fighters in the 70's and 80's an is facing the prospect of being forced back into Afghanistan, which is a pretty forbidding place these days.

Anyhow, I won't be able to blog for a few days.

Detained by the Pakistan Navy (briefly)

On Sunday we took a little time to explore some other parts of Karachi, since we had finished reporting our baby rescue story. Omar Farooq, the fixer we had been using, accompanied us, and, as we found out, it was a good thing he did.

We had our driver take us to the port of Karachi, which, like the rest of the city, is dirty and noisy and packed to the gills with people trying to make a living, often by swindling unlucky tourists. (I should say at this point that the people we have encountered in Pakistan have been almost universally kind and generous; however I did just purchase a pair of 'real,' 'authentic' Armani sunglasses for 500 rupees from a street vendor only to discover you shouldn't pay more than 100 rupees.)

As soon as we exited the car we were surrounded by a horde of boat owners, all clamoring for us to go for a ride because each of their boats somehow was amazingly faster, safer and just plain better than all of the others. Walking up the street toward the docks we had quite an entourage.

Then we got in trouble with the Pakistan Navy. Two officers apparently spotted Jodi Hilton (the photographer who is along for this trip) taking photographs in the general direction of some military installations. For 10 or 15 minutes they interrogated Omar in Urdu while the boat owners gawked. Not understanding what any of the shouting was about, we stood by with our gear and wondered whether Pakistan prison guards would honor our advance health care directives. But Omar talked fast, and eventually they let us go with dire warnings.

Manora Island was not exciting. We dined next to a table full of prettily-dressed transvestites and managed to get far more stares than they did. Then we visited a deserted Hindu shrine on the beach, which was pretty depressing.

The boat ride back in the dark was the scariest part. It was so overloaded that the gunwales often were less than a foot above the surface. Somehow we made it back though.

All of the photos in this post were taken by Jodi Hilton.

Pakistani food

I know this may come as a surprise, but this place has great Pakistani food. Food here is very similar to Indian food.

But the really odd thing is, with all these fantastic (and ridiculously cheap -- five people can go out to eat for about $4) Pakistani places, McDonalds and Pizza Hut are considered luxury destinations. And to get into McDonalds you have to pass security measures that are nearly as tight as in the airports.

Singing orphans

After interviewing several orphans at the Edhi Foundation in Karachi, I was playing around with about a dozen of them, when one of them came up and told me through an interpreter that he wanted to sing me a song.


When he did, that set off the others, and, one-by-one, they started queuing up to perform their own solos. This went on for quite some time, and so Jodi started recording them.

It was pretty amazing. They were from all parts of Pakistan, and each sang songs in his own language (people speak at least 10 different languages in this country).

I'll post an audio clip of one of the songs as soon as I get it.

Orphanages, drag queens and ambulance rides

In recent days I have:















- Been accosted by (unattractive) transvestite Pakistani beggars

- Viewed 60 unclaimed bodies in a morgue




















- Attended the burial of six babies whose bodies washed up on the streets of Karachi

- Heard from a bevy of attorneys about their push to hang Musharraf




















- Spent three days in an orphanage

- Saw the scorch marks where Benazir Bhutto was assassinated














- Ridden through the streets of Karachi in the back of an ambulance

More from Islamabad

We're headed for Karachi in a couple of hours, but here is a small photo album of what we saw in Islamabad, Rawalpindi and the Said Pur village (since for some reason this Internet connection likes Facebook better than blogger).

In Karachi we will take a look at a baby-rescue operation and a network of orphanages by day and checking out the city's nightlife umm, by night.

Big trucks, little villages

These Said Pur children played and peeked at us while their parents visited a sick relative.





















The drivers mobbed us at the van stop in Rawalpindi. But this man just seemed mildly curious.
















I'll put more photos up when my Internet connection improves.

And the morning and the morning were the first day

We took a flight Friday morning out of Boston that didn't land for at least a couple of months. No actually, we saw only one sunrise, which broke over the Caspian Sea as we passed north of Iran.

I'd describe the sunset in poetic detail, but the jerk next to me shuttered the window at that point.

We landed to find an extremely friendly driver who shuttled us all around Islamabad, helped us exchange our money, get cell phones, and shop for shalwar kameez, the traditional Pakistani outfit. I am told that traffic in Islamabad is nothing compared to what we'll find in Karachi, but I was still pretty impressed.

Bicyclers rode against traffic, and not always just on the side of the highway. There is a lot of construction going on along Islamabad's main artery, and lots and lots of pedestrians walking with suicidal abandon between the hurtling mopeds, tiny vans and brightly-colored buses (you've got to see these; I hope to get some photos today). Auto drivers don't pay much attention to lanes or street signs and mopeds are even worse. I pointed out a moped that was being ridden by four people at once, but this did not impress our driver, who told me to wait till I saw one with five or six or seven people perched on it.

Many of the soldiers and private security forces sported automatic weapons, but for the most part seemed pretty laid back, lounging in the shade and talking. Our guest house seems pretty secure. We are in a fairly quiet residential area, walled off and set back from the road by a good-sized courtyard. Armed security is pretty visible, and patrols the grounds around the clock.

Having not slept in a couple of days, we were thinking of calling it a night when we ran into some folks from ABC news who took us along to the opening of a private nightclub downtown. It was somewhat disconcerting to see the Italian restaurant that was bombed a few months back just around the corner, but the evening was pretty low-key. But I have to say, going clubbing was not exactly how I had expected to spend my first evening in Pakistan.

Leaving Friday

This blog is for the few of you who have not yet heard enough about my reporting trip to Pakistan. I know there must be one or two left out there. Just kidding; I know I've not talked about much else for six months.

We depart from Boston at 8:20 a.m. Friday, June 13, on British Airways flight BA0238 and arrive at Heathrow at 7:40 p.m. Then we will depart from Heathrow British Airways flight BA0129 at 9:40 p.m. Friday and arrive in Islamabad at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, June 14.

Anyway, I intend to use this as a way of keeping everyone informed of my whereabouts and safety as I travel the country for almost a month. I'll try to take lots of pictures and give daily updates. But if I don't update, don't assume the worst; several places we'll visit won't have reliable Internet access. I'll try to give a heads up before we head there, but may not have a chance.

Once we get there and get local-numbered cell phones, we plan to register our trip itinerary with the U.S. State Department, which will notify us if a particular area is unsafe for travel, etc., and also try to keep track of our whereabouts and condition.

This will be the first time in Pakistan for both of us. Feel free to leave comments here as we go.