Afghanistan: UN envoy to visit country to assess conflict's impact on children
The United Nations envoy for war-affected children is slated to visit Afghanistan next week to assess first-hand the impact of the years of war on the country's youngsters.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Olara Otunnu, will visit Afghanistan from 22 to 28 July, travelling to Kabul and other regions, including Kandahar and Mazar-i-Sharif, and visiting children in camps for internally displaced persons.
Mr. Otunnu is expected to meet with civil society groups, non-governmental organizations, national authorities and UN humanitarian and development personnel.
On 28 July, Mr. Otunnu is scheduled to address the international conference on "Building a Peaceful Future for Afghanistan: A Total Ban on Anti-Personnel Mines." According to the Special Representative's office, about 35,000 children have been victims of landmines in Afghanistan, the most mine-contaminated country in the world.
In other news, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) today said that Afghan returns have surpassed 1.3 million, including more than 1,190,000 refugees who have repatriated from Pakistan since the initiative started on 1 March.
Some 98,000 people have returned from Iran since the operation began there on April 9 and another 10,000 returnees have arrived from the Central Asian states, UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski said in Geneva. The agency has also helped up to 200,000 internally displaced persons return home, out of a target of 390,000.
The scale of returns has put a financial strain on the agency, forcing it to focus its aid on four priority areas - protection, travel assistance/returnee packages, shelter and water - and leaving previously anticipated expenditures in education and basic medical assistance to other agencies, Mr. Janowski said.
"Financial constraints mean that UNHCR has no further funds to purchase items like plastic tarpaulins, blankets, buckets, or jerry cans," he noted. "In some parts of Afghanistan, we've already exhausted supplies of these items that are included in the returnee packages, and we're using stocks from the International Committee of the Red Cross and [the UN Children's Fund]."