Afghan refugees : We want to return to homeland as soon as possible

Ogata Yasuo, head of a Japanese Communist Party parliamentary research
team in Pakistan visited an Afghan refugee camp in the suburbs of the
Pakistani city of Peshawar on November 3.

About 53,000 people (11,000 families) who fled Afghanistan live there, on
a ration of 15 kilograms of wheat flour per head per month.

A family of six, for example, lives in a small cloth tent, equipped only
with quilts, a pot and a small cooking stove. The family members are husband
and wife, three daughters and a son. They said that they lived in an
apartment in Kabul, Afghanistan's capital, but were driven out by the
Taliban when they ruled the city in 1994.

The JCP team visited a school in the refugee camp which was built with
the help of non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Ogata saw pupils studying hard, maintaining ethnic pride in spite of
enormous difficulties. A pupil said to Ogata, "In these 20 years, we were
under the threat of the Soviet invasion, and now we are exposed to America's
air strikes. I want the war to end so that we can return home."

The headmaster said, "Clothes and shoes we want, but we want peace above
all else." (end)