Refugees who returned in hopes of a better life in Afghanistan now can only hope to get through harsh winter

Friday, December 13th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) _ It has been a cold welcome for many of the 1.8 million Afghan war refugees who streamed home after the fall of the Taliban last year. The luckier ones spend freezing nights in bullet-scarred ruins in Kabul. The unlucky sleep huddled together under frail plastic tents.

Returning after years in squalid camps in neighboring Pakistan and Iran, the refugees hoped for a better life here. But with few jobs and fewer places to live, many are now hoping just to survive Afghanistan's harsh winter.

``At night the cold is so bad, it's frightening,'' said Taza Gul, the elderly head of a family of 11 that lives under a tiny roadside tent. ``It may get worse, we don't know. Our fate depends on Allah.''

The U.N. refugee agency estimates 560,000 people will be particularly vulnerable this winter because they lack adequate housing, food and the means to keep warm, the agency spokeswoman Maki Shinohara said.

Many are in danger simply because they live in remote rural areas where roads will likely be cut off by snowfall blocking most emergency aid from getting through.

The United Nations has been trying to head off any crisis by distributing tens of thousands of blankets, wood stoves, fuel and plastic sheeting, Shinohara said.

The U.N. World Food Program has delivered 51,000 tons of food nationwide, 95 percent of its winter target. The rest is expected to be delivered before the end of December.

Authorities hope those supplies will get desperate families through January and February _ the harshest winter months.

Shinohara said the United Nations was holding the bulk of its winter stockpile in reserve in case of emergencies, such as a severe drop in temperature or a new conflict that would displace more civilians.

Shinohara said the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was especially concerned about the snowy central highlands, where temperatures could drop to minus 22 degrees.

Southern Afghanistan, though warmer, was also a concern because of some 400,000 internally displaced refugees there, Shinohara said.

This weekend, 10 children died in the southern border town of Spinboldak during what the refugee agency called ``unusually cold weather.'' The exact cause of the deaths, however, was still unknown, the agency said.

Rural Development Minister Hanif Asmar told The Associated Press those most at risk this winter were families like Gul's _ returnees living in destroyed houses, tents _ or worse. He estimated their numbers at 240,000 across the country.

``The situation in urban areas, particularly among those families living in open spaces or dilapidated buildings, is still precarious,'' Asmar said. ``We're doing quite a lot to assist them, but not all of them have yet been covered.''

Gul said aid agencies had handed out trucks full of charcoal to people living in tents next to his. But he said many, including his own family, were overlooked.

Asmar said Gul's family was not helped because until recently aid groups had been operating on their own without consulting the central government to coordinate efforts.

At a conference in January in Tokyo, donor countries pledged $4.5 billion to get Afghanistan back on its feet over the next five years. Government officials have said that up to four times that amount is needed.

President Hamid Karzai has said the bulk of the money has been delivered via the United Nations or humanitarian aid groups, not the central government. Officials estimate $1.8 billion has been committed so far this year.

``We haven't received help from anybody,'' Gul said as several of his children and grandchildren, blankets draped across their backs, warmed their hands over a tiny clay pot filled with a few piece of coal.

``We don't even have enough money to buy firewood,'' Gul said. ``I have to send my children to beg for it.''