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NATO airstrikes, night raids blamed for Afghan IDP crisis –report

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 15:58 GMT

Source: alertnet // Katie Nguyen

An Afghan woman clad in burqa begs with her children near a newly constructed building in Kabul June 14, 2011. REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail

By Katie Nguyen

LONDON (AlertNet) - More than 250,000 Afghans have fled their villages in the last two years, Refugees International said in a report blaming U.S. counterinsurgency strategy for causing greater instability in Afghanistan and forcing more people from their homes.

"President Obama's strategy in Afghanistan has not prioritized the needs of hundreds of thousands of Afghans whose lives have been made worse since the war began," Refugees International President Michel Gabaudan said in a statement.

Not only have NATO-led troops and Afghan forces failed to protect Afghans, but international airstrikes and night raids by U.S. Special Forces were destroying homes, crops and infrastructure, traumatising civilians and displacing tens of thousands of people, the advocacy group said.

The number of people displaced since the beginning of the year has more than doubled to 91,000 compared to the same period last year. In the north alone, nearly 30,000 people have been uprooted, a sevenfold increase compared to last year, it said.

Internal displacement is not new in a country that has suffered a decade of conflict. But the pattern of displacement in Afghanistan had changed, U.S.-based Refugees International said.

"Before the military escalated its campaign, Afghans were fleeing for brief periods and returning home shortly thereafter," it said. "Now, people are increasingly unwilling to go back to their homes because they are afraid their villages are unsafe."

Exacerbating the crisis were militias, many funded and trained by the United States as part of the Afghan Local Police programme favoured by U.S. General David Petraeus.

Security analysts have repeatedly raised fears the units could lead to a repeat of the tribal militias that received covert U.S. backing to fight the 1979 Soviet invasion, before later turning on their own government.

The defence units are meant to provide security for villagers wanting to resist the Taliban. But many of them are increasing insecurity, particularly in the south, with members accused of looting, harassing and forcibly taxing villages, Refugees International said.

It called on the U.S. Congress to withhold funding for the initiative until proper recruitment, vetting and command/control systems were in place.

LIMITED HUMANITARIAN RESPONSE

Refugees International's report comes a week after President Barack Obama announced he was ordering 10,000 U.S. troops to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of the year and 23,000 more by next summer, leaving some 70,000 U.S. troops on the ground.

The report, based on field research carried out last month, also criticised foreign and Afghan troops for failing to share information with aid organisations about the humanitarian needs and displacement patterns in areas where they operate.

In a symptom of the "fractured" relations aid groups had with the military brass, monthly NGO meetings with the deputy commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul had stopped altogether, Refugees International said.

"At best, military coordination with humanitarian agencies is ad-hoc and personality-driven, worsened by the high turnover rates of the military," it said.

To tackle increasingly difficult humanitarian challenges in Afghanistan, the United Nations should immediately fill the post of Humanitarian Coordinator, which has been vacant for seven months, Refugees International said.

It also suggested that the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR double the number of humanitarian affairs and protection officers. For example, UNHCR has only one protection officer to cover nine northern provinces.

Not only have Afghans had to contend with the conflict but a drought in the north and increasing food prices have made life harder, leaving few options for safety or survival.

In one case a group of internally displaced people from northwestern Badgis province told researchers they had been uprooted more than five times in one year, and were forced to live in a cave during one period of intense fighting.

(Editing by Rebekah Curtis)