DATE=11/25/1999 TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT TITLE=INDIA - AFGHAN REFUGEES (L-ONLY) NUMBER=2-256523 BYLINE=ANJANA PASRICHA DATELINE=NEW DELHI CONTENT= VOICED AT: INTRO: Thousands of Afghan refugees, living in India for more than a decade, say they are left without any means of survival because the Indian government is not recognizing them as political refugees and the United Nations has slashed an aid program which helped them for many years. Indian human rights groups say the Afghan refugees are in urgent need of assistance. From New Delhi, Anjana Pasricha reports. TEXT: More than 300 Afghan refugees staged a silent, sit-in protest Thursday outside the New Delhi office of the United Nations High Commission on refugees. They are demanding the reinstatement of aid and resettlement programs. More than 60-thousand Afghan refugees came to India in the years following the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Indian government does not officially recognize them as refugees-but has allowed the UNHCR to operate a program for them. However, in the last five years, the UNHCR has slashed its aid program from 12-thousand to just one-thousand, 500 families. The refugees say they cannot work in India because they have no residence permits and no status as refugees-so it has become difficult for them to survive day-to-day. //begin act. of refugee#1// The main problem is financial , no security of life, no visa, nothing at all. //end act. of refugee #1// The refugees say they are forced to live in sub- standard housing and often cannot even afford to send their children to school. //begin act. of refugee #2// Afghan people don't have house money, school fees, we don't have anything over here. //end act. of refugee #2// The UNHCR says it has slashed financial allowances for the refugees because it shifted the focus of its program from direct aid to helping the refugees attain financial self-sufficiency. But a recent study by the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Center found most of the Afghan refugees living in destitution in Delhi's shanty towns. Ravi Nair, who heads the group, says among the refugees are men who held prominent positions in Afghanistan before they were forced to flee. He says many have become street vendors earning about 40 dollars a month. //begin Nair act.// They already have been driven to desititution. It's not the future, it is the present. There are generals of the former Afghan army, judges of the former Supreme Court of Afghanistan who are hawkers and vendors on the streets of Malviya Nagar (a New Delhi street) //end Nair act.// Human rights activists want the Indian government to give the Afghans the legal status of refugees, and the UNHCR to restore aid to them. (Signed) NEB/AP/PLM NEB/WTW/ 25-Nov-1999 04:48 AM EDT (25-Nov-1999 0948 UTC) NNNN Source: Voice of America .
