First Day in a Camp on the Moon

By Jonathan Frerichs

Imagine 20,000 people camping on the moon. High in the forbidding mountains of northwest Pakistan, the world's newest Afghan refugee camp is nearly full. The unlikely setting is a stony slope near the legendary Khyber Pass.

A thousand new residents arrive at a time in Shalman Camp, bussed here from much bigger, more crowded and much older refugee camps and colonies around the city of Peshawar, Pakistan. A talcum fine dust rises to greet them. So do aid workers organized to provide registration, medical checks, a hot meal and basic household items.

The harsh setting of Shalman Camp is a reminder that nearly four million Afghan refugees live in places chosen for them by war, drought and strife. Shalman's establishment, at this point in time, is a reminder that Afghanistan's crises are far from over.

   

A first day in Shalman Camp includes the following.

Half the new arrivals get a hot lunch, foreground. The menu today is rice pilaf and bread. Meanwhile, the other 500 newcomers go through registration and medical checks on the far side of the fence.

Naheeda, 3, has just had her vaccinations, like all the youngest refugees. She became a refugee at the age of two when her father, Kabir, took his family from Jalalabad to Pakistan in search of work. Now he hopes to return to Afghanistan, where he used to make a living selling vegetables. "When there is peace, I will do any kind of work," Kabir says.

Families, their bundled possessions, and their camp ration of bedding, mats, pots, food and soap, pile into pickup trucks for the short ride from the reception area to the tent sites.

Shan Sudir (lower left), 4, and his family fled their home in eastern Afghanistan 13 months ago. Will this be the last move he makes as a refugee?

Kabir settles his family in their allotted tent. His wife, left, has waited much of the day as he stood in lines and arranged their affairs. It's as if hard-working women have little place during such this unusual day spent completely in public.

Five-year-old Sardar Wali helps clear the stones from the Kabir family's tent floor. Residents use Shalman's plentiful stones for walls that offer a little privacy.

Baz Bibi, 6, fills her family's 20-liter container. She spent six months as a refugee near Peshawar, Pakistan, before her family agreed to move to this new camp. Her home is on the Shomali plain north of Kabul, an area that saw heavy fighting under the Taliban and during the recent U.S.-led campaign.

In one corner of the camp, Nisar Ahmad is the face of Action by Churches Together (ACT). He manages one of the 20,000-liter water systems installed by Norwegian Church Aid. The nylon storage bladder lasts about one day. Refills come by tank truck from a village well. Plans to drill through hundreds of feet of rock were abandoned during the long months of preparation at the Shalman site.

Desolate Shalman is only four miles from the border of Afghanistan. These boys are almost home. Yet, unless 23 years of war in their homeland gives way to lasting peace and stability, this way station will begin to feel like a camp on the moon.

February 1, 2002

   

Photos credit: Jonathan Frerichs/ACT International

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