Aid Workers Are Newest Afghan Refugees

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Like the refugees they often serve, foreign aid workers forced to leave Afghanistan are stuck outside "their" country wondering when they can return.

And like the Afghan refugees crowding mud-hut camps around this rough Pakistani border town, the mood among volunteers ranges from despair to determination.

"As long as the people - the individuals - in Afghanistan have faith in us, and we have faith in them, we will do everything possible to return," said Ingemar Anderson of the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan.

Other aid workers, however, said morale has hit "rock bottom" since the foreigners left Afghanistan two months ago.

The hard-line Taliban religious army that controls most of Afghanistan expelled about 200 aid workers for 38 humanitarian groups on July 20 after they refused to move into war-damaged, unsafe college dormitories.

Most others, including U.N. staff, fled after American cruise missiles slammed into suspected terrorist training camps in Afghanistan on Aug. 8, bringing a backlash against all foreigners. Only the Red Cross' foreign staff remained, but it was drastically reduced.

Humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, devastated by 20 years of war, includes food, fresh-water programs, health care, schools, books and even soccer balls.

"For the moment, projects are continuing with local staff," said Sarah Russell, a worker for UNOCA, a U.N. agency coordinating aid to Afghanistan.

"It can continue for a while, but we are sort of in a state of limbo," she added.

Some organizations fear financing will dry up unless foreign staffers return to Afghanistan, although for now most donor nations seem willing to keep helping.

"I think, for the aid community, this is very much a time of reflection," said Charles MacFadden of ACBAR, which also coordinates aid efforts for Afghanistan. "People are looking at what they have been doing in Afghanistan, and what they are going to do."

The United Nations is discussing the possible return of aid workers, and many other groups are waiting to follow its lead. Talks between the United Nations and private groups also seek better coordination of aid programs.

"The security of national and international staff are the highest priority," said Russell.

One U.N. aid worker was killed and another wounded after the U.S. missile attack, and Afghans are still angry.

In addition, Iran has massed troops on its border with Afghanistan in anger over the killing of 10 Iranians by Taliban militiamen last month, raising fears of an invasion.

So foreign aid workers wait in Peshawar, keeping a low profile because of intense anti-American sentiment in Pakistan over the missile attack. Others languish in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. Others have taken extended leave or have left for good.

Oddvind Forbord of the Norwegian Afghanistan Committee said his two-year contract expired in May, but so far no replacement has been named. The walls of his rented house are stripped of pictures, hinting at his eagerness to pack up and move on.

"I am exhausted," Forbord said, saying Afghanistan "is just as bad now as it was in 1981."

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies have kept their expatriate staffers in Afghanistan, sending 60 trucks a week from Peshawar and flying in supplies in a $60 million-a-year aid effort.

"But we decided to sharply reduce the number of expats," said Terry Dessimoz, the Red Cross administrator in Peshawar.

CARE International withdrew its six foreign staffers and now fights starvation among 11,000 war widows and their families in Kabul through a network of local Afghans.

Asef Rahimi, an Afghan working for CARE in Peshawar, is optimistic conditions will improve soon in Afghanistan and foreign aid workers will be able to return.

"The general mood in Kabul is that the Taliban will begin to show more flexibility, mainly because they have control of most of the country," he said. "They will be under more and more pressure to take on responsibility as a government."