Afghanistan: No camp for Marjah Displaced

IRIN – The government and aid agencies have decided not to set up a camp for hundreds of families displaced by fighting between pro-government forces and the Taliban in the Marjah area of the southern province of Helmand.

“We don’t want to make this a protracted emergency where people would remain in a camp indefinitely,” Dawood Ahmadi, a spokesman of the Helmand governor, told IRIN.

Just over 10,000 people (1,573 families) arrived in the provincial capital of Lashkargah in the past 10 days as a major offensive in Nad Ali District by NATO and Afghan government forces got under way, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

“Most of the IDPs [internally displaced persons] have been accommodated by relatives and friends in Lashkargah and some live in rented rooms,” Farooq Noorzai, head of the provincial department of refugee affairs, told IRIN.

UNHCR, which relies on information it receives from local partners including the department of refugee affairs, said there had been no “significant” shelter problem facing IDPs in Lashkargah.

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