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03/25/2006:

"Please don't come home, UN begs Afghan refugees"

IN ONE of the most blunt assessments of post-Taliban life in Afghanistan, a high-ranking United Nations representative has warned refugees not to return home because security is so dire.

The comments came as the fugitive Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, vowed to launch a ferocious offensive against US-led forces.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that 4.4 million refugees have returned since the Taliban were toppled in 2001. The flood of refugees created a crisis that ate up funds originally reserved for relief and reconstruction in a country still dominated by warlords, their militias and the opium trade.

Massive unemployment and widespread unrest, especially in the tribal areas of the country's south and east, have generated long queues of visa-hungry Afghans outside the Iranian and Pakistani embassies.
smh.com.au