PESHAWAR (Pajhwok): Pakistan has warned the international community and the United Nations that a humanitarian crisis is brewing at Afghan refugee camps due to prolonged lockdown amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Minister for States and Frontier Regions Shehryar Khan Afridi issued the warning while speaking to journalists at an Afghan refugee camp after installing a walk-through sanitation gate.

Funds had been raised for helping out Afghan refugees stranded at camps due to lockdown, the minister said, adding a special relief package was being prepared for Afghan refugees.

“If Pakistan can roll out a special relief package for Afghan refugees, why can’t developed nations come to their rescue?” he asked.

Afridi said the Afghan refugees had migrated to Pakistan under the UN umbrella due to the war in their country.

“Now it is the responsibility of the UN and the global community to help these refugees,” the minister argued.

The minister has written a letter to the Pakistan representative to UNHCR to divert funds to provide food to besieged Afghans at the refugee camps.

Food items had to be provided to the Afghan refugees on a war footing as the refugees had been without food for the last two weeks, the minister concluded.

mud

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